CAMBRIDGE LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES The Lords of Tetzcoco The Transformation of Indigenous Rule in Postconquest Central Mexico BRADLEY BENTONCambridge Latin American Studies General editors KRIS LANE, Tulane University MATTHEW RESTALL, Pennsylvania State University Editor emeritus HERBERT S. KLEIN Gouverneur Morris Emeritus Professor of History, Columbia University and Hoover Research Fellow, Stanford University Other Books in the Series 1 Ideas and Politics of Chilean Independence, 1808-1833, Simon Collier + Church Wealth in Mexico: A Study of the “Juzgado de Capellanias” in the “Archbishopri¢ of Mexico 1800-1856, Michael P. Costeloe 3 The Mexican Revolution, 1910-1914: The Diplomacy of Anglo-American Conflict, P. A. R. Calvert 4 Britain and the Onset of Modernization in Brazil, 850-1914, Richard Graham § Parties and Political Change in Bolivia, 1880~r9 52, Herbert S. 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Bauer Letters and People of the Spanish Indies: Sixteenth Century, James Lockhart and Enrique Otte, eds. ‘The African Experience in Spanish America, 1502 to the Present Day, Leslie B, Rout, Jr. (Continued after the index) U5(25 (Gor y UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE P22. 5 4d 2 HMMM, oe The Lords of Tetzcoco The Transformation of Indigenous Rule in Postconquest Central Mexico BRADLEY BENTON North Dakota State University FAGULTRO OE GEOGRAFIA E HISTORIA BIBLIOTECA CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESSCAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS University Printing House, Cambridge cB2 88s, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, ny 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia 4843/24, 2nd Floor, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, Delhi - 110002, India 79 Anson Road, #06-04/06, Singapore 079906 ity of Cambridge. Cambridge University Press is part of the Univer I furthers the University's mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781 107190580 DOK: 10.1017/9781 108115971 © Bradley Benton 2017 ‘This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2017 Printed in the United States of America by Sheridan Books, Inc. A catalogue record for this publication is available from: the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ‘Names: Benton, Bradley, 1980 author. -rrrue: The lords of Tetzcoco : the transformation of indigenous rule in postconquest central Mexico / Bradley Benton, North Dakota State University. oescription: New York : Cambridge University Press, [2017] | Series: Cambridge Latin American studies IDENTIFIERS: LCCN 2016056413 | ISBN 9781107190580 susyects: 1csH: Texcoco de Mora (Mexico) - History. | Texcoco de Mora (Mexico) ~ Social life and customs. | Indigenous peoples ~ Mexico - Texcoco de Mota History. | Families of royal descent ~ Mexico —"Texcoco de Mora ~ History. | “orecs - Mexico ~ Texcoco de Mora ~ History. | Colonists ~ Mexico ~ Texcoco “Je Mora ~ History. | Mexico - History ~ Spanish colony, 1540-1810. CLASSIFICATION: LCC F1391.7338 B45 2017 | DDC 972/.02-de23 LC record available at https:/ficcn.loc.gov/2016056413, 1sBN 978-1-107-19058-0 Hardback has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs fer extemal or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication rir] does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Cambridge University Press For Neely, Thomas, John William, and MacContents List of Figures page viii Acknowledgments ix List of Abbreviations xii Introduction PART I: CONQUEST AND CONTINUITY I Tumultuous Colonial Beginnings, 1515-1539 19 2 Reassertion of Traditional Authority, 1540-1564 48 PART II: POST-1564 TRANSFORMATIVE FORCES 3 Noble Resources: Tribute, Labor, and Land 81 4 Interethnic Unions and the Rise of Mestizos 106 5 Family Conflict and Local Power 134 6 Conclusions: A Colonial Aristocracy 157 Appendix A: Tlatoque of Tetzcoco 166 Appendix B: Selected Members of the Ruling Family of Tetzcoco 167 Appendix C: Prosopography of the Lords of Tetzcoco 168 References 185 192 IndexO.r o. b 0.3 r 1.2 2.2 23 24 2.6 27 3. 3.2 3.3 3.4 4a 4a 43 6.1 Figures Basin of Mexico, ca. 1519, with Tetzcoco’s territory in the east. Altepet! of Tetzcoco with ceremonial center, six calpolli, and outlying area. Signs for Tetzcoco from Codex Xolotl, map 5, and Codex en Cruz. Nezahualpilli’s wives according to Alva Ixtlilxochitl, first reference. Nezahualpilli’s wives according to Alva Ixtlilxochitl, second reference. Boban Calendar Wheel, lithograph (after Doutrelaine 1866-1867). Humboldt Fragment VI. Don Antonio Pimentel Tlahuitoltzin. Humboldt Fragment VI, detail. The Oztoticpac Lands Map. Coat of Arms of the City of Tetzcoco. Coat of Arms of the Tlatoque of Tetzcoco. Coat of Arms of the City of Tetzcoco. Archivo General de la Nacién, Mapa 1218. ‘Archivo General de la Nacién, Mapa 1217. Archivo General de la Nacin, Mapa 1479. ‘Archivo General de la Nacién, Mapa 1891. Boban Calendar Wheel, detail. ‘Archivo General de la Nacién, Mapa 1890. Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s Family Tree. Genealogical Tree of the Royal Line of Tetzcoco. viii page § 24 24 52 58 60 6r 69 7° 72 93 95 99 102 116 122 125 163 Acknowledgments This work is only possible because of the enormous amount of support Thave received as a scholar. First, I must mention Joyce Porter, high school Spanish teacher par excellence, whose classroom was a magical place full of the most beautiful knowledge and ways of thinking; she has shaped this book perhaps more than anyone else. I am also extremely Brateful to Lourdes Manyé, my undergraduate Spanish professor and advisor at Furman University, who remains a source of encouragement and friendship. As a new MA student at Tulane, I assumed I would do graduate work on twentieth-century Argentina. Fortunately for me, Twas distracted by the work of Susan Schroeder, Elizabeth Boone, and Victoria Bricker. This book is very much influenced by these three impressive scholars of indigenous Mesoamerica, especially by Susan Schroeder, who introduced me to Tetzcoco, directed my MA thesis, and continues to be a wonderful mentor and friend. I am also indebred to David Dressing, formerly of the Tulane Latin American Library, to Jimmy Huck in the Stone Center for Latin American Studies, and to my fellow students at Tulane: Richard Conway, Rosana Cruz, Erika Hosselkus, Liz Jones, Mark Lentz, Mare Maddox, Kate Schuenke, Amisha Sharma, Beth Stevens, Jon Truitt, and Margarita Vargas. At UCLA, Kevin Terraciano directed the dissertation on which this work is based, His sharp insights, masterful command of indigenous language and historiography, and love of the people and history of Latin America are very much appreciated. My dissertation committee members Teo Ruiz and Cecelia Klein provided invaluable guidance andx Acknowledgments insight, as did courses and conversations with Robin Derby, Anthony Pagden, Bill Summerhill, and Geoffrey Symcox. I am also indebted to the late James Lockhart, who worked with me on some passages of Tetzcoca Nahuatl, and to the UCLA Nahuatl working group that included Stafford Poole, Lisa Sousa, and Kevin Terraciano. Despite the brilliance of my professors at UCLA, I never would have finished without the support of a wonderful cohort of fellow students, including Regan Buck Bardeen, Erin Brown, Lino Camprubi, Xochitl Flores, Leén Garcia, Kevin Goldberg, Veronica Gutierrez, Margarita Ochoa, Philip Ramirez, Melanie Schmidt, Ned Schoolman, Pablo Sierra, Courtney Spikes, Zeb Tortorici, and Peter Villella. I am especially grateful to Dana Velasco Murillo, who gives great advice both on scholarship and on life. I also benefited from a summer at the Mellon Institute for Spanish Paleography at the University of Texas under the direction of the masterful Carla Rahn Phillips and from the fellowship of my fellow paleographers, Jesse Cromwell in particular. While researching this project in archives in Spain and Mexico, I was fortunate to encounter stimulating and engaging colleagues who made the process infinitely more enjoyable and productive: Jeremy Baskes, Juanjo Benavides, Justin Blanton, Maria Castaiieda de la Paz, Caroline Cunil, Magdalena Diaz, Anne Eller, Consoli Fernéndez, Michael Frances, Esther Gonzalez, Martin Nesvig, Xavier Noguez, Juanjo Ponce, Allyson Poska, Elena Schneider, Rob Schwaller, Tatiana Seijas, and Barbara Zepeda. Thanks especially to Lino Camprubi, Maria Castafieda de la Paz, and Michel Oudijk for their most gracious hospitality and kindness while I was abroad. None of the work would have been possible without the able assistance of the archivists at the Archivo General de Indias, the Archivo General de la Nacién, the Biblioteca Nacional del Instituto Nacional de Antropologia ¢ Historia, the Municipal Archive of Texcoco, and the exceedingly accommodating folks at the Notarial Archive in Toluca. The portions of this work that have been presented at conferences over the years have benefited from questions and comments from Elizabeth Boone, Louise Burkhart, Marfa Castafieda de la Paz, John Chuchiak, Susan Deeds, Lori Diel, Eduardo Douglas, Robert Haskett, Kris Lane, Patrick Lesbre, Michel Oudijk, Cynthia Radding, Matthew Restall, Lisa Sousa, David Tavarez, Camilla Townsend, Javier Villa- Flores, and Stephanie Wood. I also dearly cherish the camaraderie and Acknowledgments xi insights of my fellow Alva Ixtlilxochitl devotees, Amber Brian, Pablo Garcia Loaeza, and Peter Villella. At NDSU, I am grateful to Tracy Barrett, Julia Bowsher, Sean Burt, John Cox, Kristen Fellows, Mark Harvey, Tom Isern, Deb Maertens, Carol Pearson, Kent Sandstrom, and Chris Whitsel; they make Fargo a lovely place to live and work. Angela Smith deserves special mention for her support, and also for her skills with Adobe Illustrator and her willingness to teach it to me. Susan Schroeder and two anonymous reviewers read the manuscript in its entirety; it is much better for their efforts. Any deficiencies, of course, are entirely my own fault. ‘At Cambridge University Press, Iam grateful to Lew Bateman for his early interest in this project and to Deborah Gershenowitz, Kris Lane, and Matthew Restall for seeing it to completion. And it has been a pleasure to work with the editorial and production staff at Cambridge, including Kristina Deusch, Fiona Allison, Ian Mclver, and Hari Kumar. Portions of Chapters 2 and 4 include material that was published in an earlier form by the University Press of Colorado and the Colonial Latin American Review, respectively. They are reused here with permission. Financial support for this project has been Provided by UCLA’s Department of History; UCLA’s Graduate Division; the Fulbright Program; NDSU’s Department of History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies; and NDSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Towe a great deal to my family for their support on this long journey, especially to Neely, Thomas, John William, and Mac; to my parents, Charlene and Tommy Benton; and to my in-laws, Beverly and Ralph Tesseneer II. | am also grateful for the support of Susan Walters and the late Ralph Tesseneer Jr.Abbreviations AGI Archivo General de Indias, Seville -I__Indiferente Section -J Justicia Section -M__Audiencia de México Section AGN Archivo General de la Nacién, Mexico City -C Civil Section -I___ Indios Section -Inq _Inquisicién Section -IV__Indiferente Virreinal Section -P_Padrones Section -T Tierras Section -V__ Vinculos Section AGNot Archivo General de Notarias, Toluca, Estado de México BNINAH _ Biblioteca Nacional, Instituto Nacional de Antropologia ¢ Historia, Mexico City xii Introduction In 1602, a group of indigenous people sent a petition to the king of Spain and his Council of the Indies in Iberia. The petition, written on behalf of the group by Mexico City resident Alonso de Solis Aguirre, addressed several matters of concern for native communities. The first matter concerned a new method of collecting tribute from native people ~ the king mandated that part of the tribute be paid in chickens. The second matter concerned the policies of taking the Eucharist to sick Indians in their homes. The third and final matter ~ and of most interest here —dealt with the “sons, grandsons, great-grandsons, and legitimate descendants of the kings, caciques, and lords that were here in the time of their paganism, especially in the cities of Mexico, Tetzcoco, and Tlaxcala.” These highborn folks, Solis Aguirre wrote, “are being regis- tered as tribute-payers like the rest of the plebeian people and, like them, charged with personal service in the repartimiento [forced labor draft].” The indignation of these native nobles at having been forced to work and pay tribute as commoners is apparent even in Solis Aguirre’s secondhand account of the affront. They demanded that the king and his council rectify the situation at once and “respect their preeminence and liberties as well-born people.” In precontact times, the native nobility had had clearly defined responsibilities and privileges. In the illustrious precontact capitals Mentioned in the letter - Mexico, Tetzcoco, and Tlaxcala — exemption * AGLM, 121:38.2 The Lords of Tetzcoco from paying tribute was one of those privileges. Indigenous nobles received tribute; they did not render it. But in 1602, the lines between native commoner and native noble had been blurred. What was unthinkable eighty years earlier ~ that the aristocracy would be forced into a labor draft - was now a sad reality. The letter written to the monarch in faraway Castile was their last hope of rescue from such a cruel twist of fate. It would be easy to suppose from this archival evidence that native leaders had suffered irreparable damage at the hands of the Spaniards and that viceregal policies devastated indigenous lords. But in 1855, centuries after the 1602 letter to the king and several decades after Mexico achieved independence from Spain, a curious lawsuit was winding its way through the legal channels of the new nation that challenges the idea of native noble collapse.* The lawsuit involved three women, all members of the same family from the city of Tetzcoco. Dofia Guadalupe Carrillo y Pimentel and dofia Maria Antonia Giiemes y Pimentel were allied on one side of the dispute against dofia Luz Lopez y Uribe on the other. The use of the honorific title “dofia” for all three women suggests some degree of superior social standing, and, indeed, the three were fighting over the possession of an estate. While the particulars of the suit have not survived, the women were collecting copies of documents from the colonial period - some of which were produced in the early sixteenth century ~ that pertained to the estate. What is noteworthy about the suit is that the estate in question was called the cacicazgo of Tetzcoco. Cacicazgos were entailed estates belonging to indigenous nobles; they had their origins in the great lordly houses of the precontact period. But why, some 300 years after the Spanish conquest and some three decades after Mexican independence, were the women still interested in the old lands of native nobles? Might the venerable Tetzcoco cacicazgo have survived for hundreds of years? Did the women think of themselves as members of the old Tetzcoco native ruling class? The very existence of the lawsuit suggests that, against all odds, both the estate and the Tetzcoca noble in fact, survive. And there was enough property and status identity did, i h of at stake in the nineteenth century to warrant a thorough searcl ‘Mexico’s colonial archives. 2 AGN-T 3594225 f. ur-sav. Introduction 3 The evidence of the 1855 case runs counter to the earlier 1602 letter. If the nobility had collapsed by the early seventeenth century, how could they still be arguing with one another in the mid-nineteenth century? But where had this once-illustrious group of indigenous rulers been for the previous 250 years? What had really happened to them after the conquest? The native nobility of central Mexico had ceased to exercise much authority over local government relatively early in the colonial period, and historians have tended not to recognize them as significant players in elite colonial society. And yet here they are in the nineteenth century. Their identities as heirs of the great precontact leader Nezahualcoyotl had weathered not only three centuries of Spanish rule, but also the turmoil of independence, Iturbide’s empire, the war with the United States, and the beginnings of the Liberal reform movement. That anyone should still remember and fight over the cacicazgo of Tetzcoco in 1855 is extraordinary. The 1602 nobles’ claims of forced labor and tribute payments, then, is not the full story of the indigenous nobility of central Mexico and of Tetzcoco. The sixteenth century was undoubtedly a time of unprece- dented change: The conquest was violent and bloody; European dis- eases brought even more death and suffering; Spanish immigrants threatened native communities with their greed for native labor and land; and there were transformations in indigenous leadership that would shape the nobility for the duration of the colonial era. Some, as the 1602 letter demonstrates, were undoubtedly reduced to poverty and hard work. Yet, as the nineteenth-century lawsuit demonstrates, not all native lords were destroyed by the upheaval. Some of them adapted. Some of them made a place for themselves in the new society. Some of them survived. THE ATHENS OF ANAHUAC The present-day city of Texcoco - spelled with an x today instead of the tz used by the Nahuatl-(Aztec-)language speakers of central Mexico in the sixteenth century — sits in the eastern part of the Estado de México, nineteen miles from Mexico City’s z6calo, just to the east of Benito Judrez International Airport and on the edge of the small marshy area that is all that remains of Lake Tetzcoco since it was drained in the late nineteenth century. Today, Texcoco is small and sleepy. Its principal4 The Lords of Tetzcoco attractions are a yearly agricultural festival, a small colonial-era city center, and the precontact site known as the baths of Nezahualcoyotl, which, though delightful, is nearly impossible to reach without a fairly thorough knowledge of local geography and rural bus routes. Modern Texcoco does not attract the crowds that flock to the pyramids of nearby Teotihuacan or the international travelers that swarm the cosmopolitan offerings of Mexico City. Texcoco is infrequently visited and nearly forgotten. Yet at the turn of the sixteenth century, after Columbus had landed in the Caribbean but before Cortés had landed on the eastern shores of Mexico, it was a much different place. Tetzcoco was impressive in 1500. The polity, called an altepetl, or ethnic state, in Nahuatl, was the foremost altepetl of Acolhuacan, a vast territory inhabited by the Acolhua ethnic group in the eastern basin. Acolhuacan was governed by seven tlatoque, or rulers (sing. tlatoani), from the altepetl of Acolman, Coatlinchan, Chiauhtla, Huexotla, Tepetlaoztoc, Tetzcoco, and Tezoyucan (see Figure 0.1). The tlatoani in Tetzcoco was dominant among the seven rulers, and the six remaining rulers rendered tribute to Tetzcoco each year. The Acolhuacan territory within the basin of Mexico constituted what has been called the “heartland” of Tetzcoca power, but Tetzcoca control penetrated the mountainous limits of the basin and extended eastward all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. While Tetzcoco’s allies occasionally aided in its efforts to exert control over the large region, on the whole, hegemony in the area was Tetzcoco’s alone, and its exten- sive territory, taken together with the heartland, constituted a veritable Tetzcoca empire.* The Tetzcoco altepet! proper appears to have included both urban and rural elements. The most urban part of the altepetl was clustered around the large ceremonial center - which included temples and palaces ~ at what is now downtown Texcoco. But the altepetl also included rural farmland and smaller settlements that could be located some distance from the center, such as the palace and baths complex at Tetacotzinco, nearly five miles away (see Figure 0.2). The altepet!’s combined urban-rural area was large, covering an area of around thirty square miles stretching from the shore of the lake in the west to the mountainous limit of the basin of Mexico in the easts > Offner 1983, 9. * Offer 1983, 112-113. + Hicks 1982, 251. Introduction 5 + Otumba + Teotihuacan * Acolman *Tezoyucan *Tepetiaoztoc © Chiauhtla *Tetzcoco * Huexotla *Coatlinchan Azcapotzalco Tlacopan 4 lexico ‘Tenochtitlan FIGURE 0.1 Basin of Mexico, ca. 1519, with Tetzcoco’s territory in the east. According to colonial-era sources, the altepet! was internally subdi- vided into six districts, called parcialidades or barrios in ie? Spanish language texts, though almost certainly called calpolli or laxilacalli in Nahuatl. The six calpolli were named for six groups 0 eee who settled Tetzcoco at various points in its history. ee : Mexicapan, Colhuacan, Tepanecapan, Se nee oe Broups of migrants from the central basin), ‘ ae ti cae Tlailotlacan (settled by groups of migrants from the to the south).$ The etymology of the word de Pomar, who wrote in the 1580s a “Tetzcoco” isa bit murky. Juan Bautista nd spoke Nahuatl fluently, records * Carrasco 1999, 133-134.6 The Lords of Tetzcoco TEPETLAOZTOC CHIAUHTLA TETZCOCO Mexicapan *Chimalpan Tiailotlacan Tetzcotzinco HUEXOTLA FIGURE 0.2 Altepetl of Tetzcoco with ceremonial center, six calpolli, and outlying area. Based on Hicks (1982, 232). that Tetzcoco is a Culhua corruption of the Chichimeca word tetzcotl, but that “it has not been possible to learn its true meaning, because not only have the Chichimeca who first gave it its name disappeared, but there is no memory of their language nor anyone who knows how to interpret it.”” Indeed, no colonial Nahuatl dictionaries or grammars appear to contain an entry for tetzco-tl, which would be the expected base morpheme for tetzcoco.* In the pictorial texts common in the pre-Hispanic and early colonial period, the sign for Tetzcoco often included stone (or stone mountain) and pot elements (see Figure 0.3). The word “Tetzcoco” does not mean “stone pot,” however. Rather, these elements are pronunciation guides or mnemonic devices, approximations of the syllables that constitute the word “Tetzcoco.” “Stone” in Nahuatl is tet/, while “pot” is comitl. The stone (or stone mountain) tells the reader that the first syllable, “tetz,” sounds like 7 Pomar 1975, 4. ® There ae, however, morphemes with similar shapes, such as e-ete-t (hard thing”), bur they are missing the crucial internal -co- before the final locative -co. See Kartewen (1992, 235). Introduction 7 FIGURE 0.3. Signs for Tetzcoco from Codex Xolotl, map 5 (left), and Codex en Cruz (right). Line drawings by the author. “tetl.” The pot tells the reader that the second and third syllables, eae oo ding contact, the area was growing In the period immediately preceding contact, in rie and increasingly urbanized. The altepet! of Tetzcoco Proper had somewhere between 25,000 and 100,000 residents om the Spaniards arrived, and the Tetzcoca territory as a whole, both the Acolhua heartland and the more remote regions together, is estimated to have had around 500,000 inhabitants paying tribute to the Tetzcoca tlatoque.® Population growth was a sign of the economic prosperity that the region enjoyed, but the source of this prosperity was! ely More remote territories and their trade with and tribute to aco, Rot the Acolhuacan region itself. Indeed, Leslie Lewis notes = = its eminence, Texcoco and the surrounding area lacked on oitable Fesources other than some agricultural produ common othe ene Valley of Mexico and the Indian people who lived in tl ae The Acolhuacan heartland economy was based principally o Production, specifically maize.” , : Tetzcoco's proximity to the lake did have economic bene, oa ver. In addition to being a source of food, the lake one oln the saline waters of Lake Tetzcoco receded in dry periods, sal © Lewis 1978, 126. 1, Offer 1983, 7, 17. Also Hicks 1982, 231. “° Lewis 1971 * Offer 1983, 17-18,8 The Lords of Tetzcoco behind in the lakeshore soil that were extracted, formed into loaves, and traded widely.'* Moreover, the lake provided an excellent means of transportation (by canoe) that was twenty-five times more efficient than transportation by land. According to Jerome Offer, “the lake system served as the major transportation artery of the Valley of Mexico.”*> Tetzcoco served as the entrepét for trade from the east that sought to enter this artery. While Tetzcoco’s own dominions were sizable and prosperous, Tetzcoco is perhaps best known for its participation in the founding of the famed Triple Alliance with Mexico Tenochtitlan and Tlacopan, commonly known today as the “Aztec Empire.” In the 1420s, leading Tetzcoca nobleman Nezahualcoyotl joined forces with these two polities against the then-dominant altepet! of Azcapotzalco in the western basin of Mexico (see Figure o.1)."* After an armed struggle the Azcapotzalca were defeated, and Nezahualcoyotl claimed the tla- toani title in Tetzcoco and ruled until his death in 1472. The alliance formed against Azcapotzalco proved to be lasting and profitable. Together, the members of the Triple Alliance militarily subdued vast expanses of central and coastal Mexico and constituted the greatest political entity in Mesoamerica at the time of European contact. Sources from the colonial period vary on the topic, but Mexico Tenochtitlan appears to have been militarily superior to the other two partners in the alliance. Tetzcoco’s sphere of influence was limited to the northeastern quadrant of the Aztec dominions, and while Tetzcoco did receive tribute and other goods from joint conquests by the Triple Alliance, that tribute was funneled through Tenochtitlan. ‘5 Though not Tenochtitlan’s equal in matters of politics, Tetzcoco enjoys the reputation of having been the cultural and intellectual center of the Nahuatl-speaking world. Charles Gibson notes that “Nezahualcoyotl ... and his son and successor Nezahualpilli ... gov- erned Acolhuacan with a cultural and imperial luxury described as surpassing even that of Tenochtitlan.”** And the seventeenth-century ' Gibson 1964, 338. '? Offner 1983, 8. “4 Tlacopan, the third member of the alliance, was located in the western basin of Mexico near Azcapotzalco. And, like Azcapotzalco, Tlacopan was a member of the ‘Tepaneca ethnic group. Tlacopan, however, resented the control of its more powerful Tepaneca neighbor and joined the Acolhuaque and Mexica to overthrow it. ‘5 Offner 1983, 90. '* Gibson 1964, 18. Introduction 9 mestizo chronicler of Tetzcoco, don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, asserts that in many matters, the tlatoque of Mexico Tenochtitlan and Tlacopan took their cue from Tetzcoco, “because the other two kings and heads of the empire were always accepting [Tetzcoco’s] laws and form of government, because it seemed to them to be the best that had yet been created.”*7 Tetzcoco and its indigenous leaders occupied a central place in precontact Nahua Mesoamerica for over a century. Even today, Mexicans are cognizant of that greatness. The figure of Nezahualcoyotl, especially, is revered in modern Mexico, and his Popularity stretches back centuries. As early as the sixteenth century, the Franciscan Motolinia [fray Toribio de Benavente] was heaping Praise on Nezahualcoyotl as a gifted ruler. Alva Ixtlilxochitl continued in this vein in the early seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, the Jesuit Francisco Javier Clavijero described Nezahualcoyot!’s Tetzcoco as the “Athens of Anahuac [central Mexico].” And in the nineteenth century, U.S. historian William H. Prescott equated Nezahualcoyot! with the biblical figures of David and Solomon. His reputation has only grown in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with scholars - including the eminent Mexican scholar Miguel Leén-Portilla — projecting an image of Nezahualcoyotl as a paragon of Mesoamerican cultural achievement.'* In 1963, local leaders honored Nezahualcoyotl’s memory by naming a newly incorporated suburb of Mexico City after him." And his image has graced the one hundred peso note since the 19905. Nezahualcoyot! and the Tetzcoca rulers loom large in the popular imagination even today. It should be noted, however, that Lee (2008, 's Tetacoco was cultu- 96-97) convincingly argues that the idea that Se a phiesiah tally superior to Mexico Tenochtitlan is not a pre-| oe of the pre-Hlispanic ae from the colonial period and isa blatant miscepresentation of he pre Hispanic pas © serve colonial-era interests Instead, he argues, Tetacoco ane TeSVESt A Net OY Similar in thei “pola, artic, an legal instations.” Lee's easement of pre Hispanic Teracoco as serious implications for our understanding ot the press relationship between Tetzcoco and Tenochtitlan. Nevertheless, Tersose, Was Oe a very powerful polity in Mesoamerica atthe time of conta as not more powerful than Tenochtitlan. 2008, 96-97. : '? Sadly, Cindad Nezahualcoyotl adjacent to Mexic Airport in the Estado de México, is known today Bang violence. "7 Alva Ixtlilxochit! 1975-1977 2:173- 8 ico City’s Benito Juarez International y as a poor community plagued by10 The Lords of Tetzcoco While the precontact grandeur of Nezahualcoyotl’s Tetzcoco has become legendary, colonial-era Tetzcoco is largely unknown to mod- ern scholars. There exists substantial confusion over information as basic as the names of the nobles and when they were in power. Given Tetzcoco’s prominent position in earlier times, this conspicuous lacuna in the historiography is surprising. Who were the heirs of Nezahualcoyotl, and how did his illustrious family fare under Spanish dominion? How did native leaders at the heart of the Spanish colonial system in Mexico survive the challenges of conquest and imperial control? What place in the Spanish order did they occupy, and did their financial fortunes endure? Spanish authorities were quick to recognize Tetzcoco’s importance as a precontact political center; it was one of only four indigenous communities in the basin of Mexico to be designated a ciudad, or city, in Spanish legal terms. The Spaniards also recognized the preemi- nence of Tetzcoco’s precontact rulers; the names Nezahualcoyotl and Nezahualpilli were almost as familiar to colonial officials as the name of the Mexica ruler Moteucgoma (Montezuma). No one in the early years of the colony challenged Tetzcoco’s eminence. But the forces unleashed by contact between Spaniards and the Tetzcoca were power- ful. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, less than one hundred years after the Spaniards arrived, Tetzcoco was a mere shadow of its former self, As David Brading noted: By the close of the sixteenth century, [the indigenous nobles of Tetzcoco} could be observed ploughing the fields, obliged to gather a meager subsistence by the sweat of their brow, their sparse earnings reduced by demands for tribute from royal officials who refused to recognize their noble status.*° And Charles Gibson determined Tetzcoco to be the “most conspicuous case” of several in which “large and centrally located towns [in central Mexico] changed from an affluent condition to one of abject depression. The tragedy of European rule, then, was acutely felt in Tetzcoco in the sixteenth century. The altepet! suffered economic collapse, and its fortunes ebbed dramatically. But Brading’s assertion that the heredi- tary nobility collapsed along with the city is untrue. The history of *© Brading 1991, 275. *! Gibson 1964, 365. Introduction ur Tetzcoco’s native aristocrats is far more complicated and nuanced than Brading asserts. The old ruling family was not simply overwhelmed by Spanish colonialism. They were not all forced to take up the plow and work. The lords of Tetzcoco actively responded to conquest and Spanish governance and negotiated a place for themselves within the new society. Their place, however, was decidedly distinct from their place in ancient times. Tetzcoco’s indigenous aristocracy was not left unchanged. In fact, after 1564, the old ruling lineage of Tetzcoco showed signs of radical transformation. In that year, they were deposed as the political leaders of Tetzcoco. They no longer participated in the day-to-day running of the city. Instead, many increasingly with- drew into a private life of affluent leisure modeled on the aristocracies of Europe. The Tetzcoca example has clear parallels with indigenous com- munities and groups of hereditary nobles in central Mexico, many of which have received considerable attention from scholars. The lords of Tetzcoco, like many other ruling lineages from central Mexico, occupied a complicated liminal space in the colonial world: They Tepresented a potential threat to Spanish power in New Spain, but they were also essential intermediaries between colonial officials and the large populations of sedentary native peoples whom the Spaniards hoped to rule. The most threatening of the native rulers, particularly the descendants of Moteucgoma in Mexico Tenochtitlan, were offered Spanish titles of nobility, estates on the Peninsula, and marriage into the Spanish peerage. Indeed, the counts of Moctezuma persist in Europe today. But the Tetzcoca nobles did Not represent the same kind of threat, and they did not warrant the same level of royal favor. If Tetzcoco had been located a greater distance from the Spaniards’ new capital in Mexico City, then per- haps the Tetzcoca nobles may have retained control of their altepet! long into the colonial period - as in fact happened in more remote Yucatan ot the Mixteca. As it happened, however, neither elevation to the peerage nor benign neglect were options eee to a Tetzcoca nobles. Instead, they negotiated a precarious a ie > clinging to their pre-Hispanic customs as much as possi et watchful eye of newly arrived viceroys and Catholic 2 es Through this careful negotiation, the Tetzcoca native leadersR The Lords of Tetzcoco transformed. This work, therefore, is a careful look at both the Tetzcoca transformation and the processes by which Spanish rule in central Mexico took hold. SOURCES, METHODOLOGY, AND ORGANIZATION Sources for the study of Tetzcoco’s native leaders are rich and diverse. Though the chronological coverage provided by these sources is not uniform, sixteenth-century Tetzcoca history is generally well documen- ted. This varying degree of coverage over time is due mainly to the lack of alphabetic writing among the precontact population of central Mexico. Though the native population was quick to adapt the Latin alphabet to the Nahuatl language (and, in many cases, to learn Spanish) after contact, Europeans monopolized the power of written alphabetic texts in the earliest years of the colonial enterprise. What is more, the Spaniards were actively engaged in destroying the traditional pictorial records — the so-called codices - of the precontact native peoples, depriving modern scholars of the rich historical information that the codices contained. For the history of the early years of colonization, therefore, this study relies on extant non-native sources. Fortunately, Tetzcoco figures prominently in many of the early Spanish chronicles of conquest, colonization, and conversion. Hernando Cortés’s letters to Emperor Charles V, for instance, offer very detailed accounts of the Tetzcoca and their role in the conquest of Tenochtitlan.** And Cortés’s fellow conquistador, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, relied on his firsthand experi- ence of the events of the 1510s and 15208 to write his True History of the Conquest of Mexico, which includes details on the Tetzcoca. * Cortés’s letters, of course, are highly problematic as sources for the study of native peoples. For a discussion of their limitations and the context in which they were produced, see Pagden (200, xlix-Ixxi), Elliott (2001), and Brading (1991, 25-29). Cortés’s chaplain-turned-historian, Francisco Lopez de Gémara, drew on Corte’s reports and the ethnographic work of Motolinia to publish a more polished account of the conquest events in 1552. Despite its sophistication, however, Lépez de Gémara’s account was accused, even in its own day, of having been embellished with imaginative and less historically accurate ornamentation. The work of Diaz del Castillo, for example, was intended to correct the errors of Lépez de Gémara, But his account, too, is highly problematic, For a discussion of its limitations, see Brading (1992, 51-54). Introduction 13 The writings of the regular clergy in Mexico are also significant ethnographic source materials from the early colonial period. The works of early Franciscan friars, particularly - Motolinia (fray Toribio de Benavente) and fray Bernardino de Sahagiin ~ are excellent firsthand accounts of the early years of the colony. Motolinia, whose Historia de los indios de la Nueva Espafia draws on native pictorial documents from Tetzcoco and other areas, and Sahagtin, whose twelve- volume General History of the Things of New Spain (also known as the Florentine Codex) is a collaboration between the Franciscan and numer- ous native authors, have the added benefit of including in their works substantial amounts of material produced by indigenous people. Sahagiin’s opus includes a large number of illustrations that ie important sources of information on the early colonial period. " ia indiana from is de Torquemada’s Monarchia in i a 7 rimary source material — d ntury also draws on pI the early seventeenth century eee including pictorials - from the Indians of New Spain; the te moe ante with the mestizo Tetzcoca historian don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl and dwells heavily on Tetzcoca bison By the 1540s, the native Tetzcoca perspective ase oc directly in the historical record through, for examp! the Inguton’ heresy trial of the Tetzcoca noble don Carlos Chich imecaruct and through the resurgence of pictorial painted manuscrps, Many ofthe more well-known Tetzcoca pictorial sources ~ the oe ce en Cruz, Mapa Tlotzin, Mapa Quinatzin, Ortoriepa Lan iM ap a Humboldt Fragment VI, for instance ~ all date from jamie Century and provide rich information on Tetzcoco’s colonia! past. ii i ‘it mention, ‘Two final published sources from the colonial period mer +. ith its accom- here. Juan Bautista de Pomar's Relacién de Tezcuco (wit A i and Panying illustrations in the Codex Ixtlilxochitl) Saran Provides rich details about local histor, society, and ul: NA Voluminous writings of the mestizo historian 0" the turn of the seven- Fernando de Alva lxtlibsochiel which come frome "0 UT teenth century, are invaluable for their ope te informants as he Letlitxochit’s access to pictorial sources and na : zcoca became more Wrote them.*3 Additionally, the native noble Teti don Domingo de San Antén pus of work Oy cg and 2006), a native * Also of value to this study isthe vast comPs UCTS Mufion Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin (19:14 The Lords of Tetzcoco and more adept at navigating the Spanish administrative system as the sixteenth century progressed, and the archives of Mexico and Spain are flush with mundane documentation — in both Spanish and Nahuatl, both alphabetic and pictorial - from the last three decades of the century. The transformation of the Tetzcocan indigenous nobles was not quick or straightforward. In fact, for many decades, Tetzcoco’s old ruling lineage maintained political power in Tetzcoco and demon- strated great skill in navigating the ever-changing political and social environment of the sixteenth century. Only in the last few decades of the sixteenth century did radical change in local govern- ance begin to occur. The process of complex, gradual change in local government is the basis for this study. Indeed, the work has been divided into two parts. Part I, “Conquest and Continuity,” examines native politics in Tetzcoco during the decades following the Spanish conquest of the region. This Part emphasizes the con- tinuity of native government in these first decades of the colonial period. Chapter 1, “Tumultuous Colonial Beginnings, 1515-1539,” looks at the period of conquest, with particular attention to the intricate factionalism within the Tetzcoca noble house that existed before the Spanish arrival. One major pre- Hispanic faction of the nobility fought against the Spaniards, while another readily joined them and provided crucial supplies and manpower. Moreover, some of the Tetzcoca nobles, far from being passive victims of Spanish conquest, were active agents in the victory and even benefited from the Spanish interference in regional politics. Chapter 2, “Reassertion of Traditional Authority, 1540-1564,” continues the theme of indigenous agency and continuity of governance from 1540 through the mid-1560s. This period marks the reign of two especially competent Tetzcoca tlatoque. Their time in office is charac- terized as a resurgence of the authority of the old Tetzcoca ruling, lineage. Both leaders demonstrated great skill in negotiating the annalist from Chalco. Though his information is at times at odds with information from Tetzcoca sources, Chimalpahin’s work has the advantage of having been written in Nahuatl and of apparently drawing on a different set of native primary sources, which makes it valuable as a point of comparison. Introduction 15 colonial system and achieved important recognition of their noble status and authority under Spanish rule. When the second of the leaders died in 1564, the noble lineage of Tetzcoco no longer consistently held political office in the alteperl. This year, therefore, marks the break between Part I and Part Il, which Thave called “Post-1564 Transformative Forces.” In this second part, Temphasize the forces at work in the late sixteenth century that con- verged to depose the old ruling family and dramatically transform the native nobility. Chapter 3, “Noble Resources: Tribute, Labor, and Land,” examines the changing economic environment for the indigenous aristocracy toward the end of the sixteenth century. Labor drafts and tribute collection became more difficult and circumscribed in the later decades, and Spanish demand for Tetzcoca land put further economic ressure on native nobles. - ° Chapter 4, “Interethnic Unions and the Rise of Mestizos,” looks at the changing nature of ethnicity among the indigenous aristocracy. Native Tetzcoca women began marrying Spaniards from the very moment of conquest, and the children of these unions ~ mestizos, or individuals of mixed indigenous and European descent = became important agents of change in the late sixteenth century. a apter 5, “Family Conflict and Local Power,” examines late a oe Political changes in Tetzcoco directly. This period hares : as the native aristocracy’s exclusive hold on local political o} . in Tetzcoco, and here I consider the factors that contributed to their ae ee emerges from this work is the fact that native nobles, While ultimately divorced from local political office and under a variety icti i many — of forms of increasing pressure, were not victims of decline, as many including themselves — have argued. Indeed, the ee = old rang family that emerges is one of continued status, rae » and pee They may have no longer participated in the daily povernane of Tetzcoco, but they continued to possess large e 2 ee and to command a certain degree of prestige in bor = and Mexico City, where the most successful members of d - sa Aaa tually moved. The lords of Tetzcoco cannot be sai oy © survived Conquest and colonialism unchanged, but neither can they have been destroyed by it.PARTI CONQUEST AND CONTINUITYTumultuous Colonial Beginnings, 1515-1539 The popular imagination has long held two competing visions of the pre-Hispanic native peoples of the Americas. Indigenous societies, many suppose, were composed of either barbaric savages or childlike innocents, The historical reality is far from either of these extremes, however. Politically, the precontact world was in fact dogged by the same political machinations and rivalries as any other period of Mexican history and, indeed, any other part of the world. When Hernando Cortés and the Spaniards arrived in 1519, they stepped into a complex political environment, one in which armed conflict was well known and opposition to the established political order was, in many places, either actively hostile or very nearly so. There was no unified indigenous monolithic state poised to resist the Spanish assault, and the Spaniards were able to take advantage of the prevail: ing tendency to local autonomy and separateness between the altepet! of central Mexico as well as the dissent and discontent within these communities to achieve their goal of political domination. Moreover, the Spaniards themselves were at times manipulated into serving the interests of one group or another. PRE-HISPANIC PRECEDENTS internal, intra-altepet! divisions were particularly strong, Nezahualpilli in 1515, his sons and the In Tetzcoco, After the death of Tetzcoca tlatoani were unable to decide on a universally accepted successor, 1920 The Lords of Tetzcoco Tetzcoca territory was eventually divided between two of them. The Spanish conquest, therefore, occurred in the context of she pre- existing political tension, a tension that Cortés's campaign for Spanish into the colonial period and reach a dramatic climax in t 539, when one of Nezahualpilli’s sons was denounced to the Mexican Inquisition and burned at the stake, his accusers composed principally of members of his own family. The conquest, then, should not be viewed as a radical disrup- tion of some mythical pre-Hispanic peace and tranquility, but rather as an extension of the politically volatile immediate pre- contact period. Even so, the Spanish conquerors differed markedly from previous indigenous conquerors in a variety of ways, and many aspects of Spanish rule were unfamiliar to native peoples and outside the scope of what they understood conquest to entail. The imposition of Christianity at the expense and exclusion of traditional Mesoamerican deities, for example, was inconsistent with the more typical practice of merely adding a conqueror’s Patron deity to the already established local pantheon, Moreover, molding local governing bodies to appear mote Spanish wee also leaders than would have been necessary had the conquering forces been indigenous rather than European. As this chapter examines the years surrounding the Spanish con- Quest from a Tetzcoca perspective, particular attention is given to this process of negotiation and adaptation between the native Tetzcoca leaders and their new Spanish overlords, Just as the Tetzcoca were divided during the conquest - some Tetzcoca came to the decision that fighting alongside the Spaniards was in their own best interests while others fought bitterly against them ~ so too did the Tetzcoca continue to negotiate the turbulent politics of the colonial period in a variety of ways. Their survival strategies in these first few decades were met with varied success; those who lacked the skill or foresight to adapt were soon relegated to obscurity and destitution, whereas those Tumultuous Colonial Beginnings, 1515-1539 a Who managed to negotiate the reality of Spanish hegemony often Succeeded in increasing substantially their wealth and power. NEZAHUALPILLI AND HIS FAMILY The divisions within the ruling family of Tetzcoco that played out 7 dramatically during the conquest period and the early years o Spanish control had roots that stretched back generations into the Precontact period. The most salient tensions, however, were = Tesult of the compound polygynist families of the Tetzcoca nm lers and their relatively flexible succession practices. The sing mi itary and political power of the altepetl of Mexico Tenochtit a ave €Xpense of Tetzcoco and other regional powers also contributed to the hostility, The we most famous precontact tlatoque of ae are Nezahualeoyot! (“Fasting Coyote,” 1. 1431-1472) a is = Nezahualpilli (“Fasting Noble,” r. 1472-1515). cesieee ese ie = enjoy the reputation among Mexicans today as having een “4 ag Poets, skilled administrators, and even proto monothiss. hee accuracy of such characterizations has been challenged, t ey none on loom legendarily in the story of Mexico’s pre-Hispaic past." Fa a their appeal is the length and stability of their reigns. : A ie important allies of the dominant - and expansionist ~ politic: lp rein Central Mexico, the altepetl of Mexico eae ee enioved 3 portion of the spoils of the military emcee w kon Participated. Nezahualcoyot! was actually one oe eee c Triple Alliance system that bound iene ca : , Tlacopan in a loose ~ and unequal con! ; Nesahualpil like all of the powerful Aaa ae ian lexico, took many wives and concubines. From eae ons he had many children. By some accounts, his children num! buted to th * Much of Nezahualcoyot!’s popularity in present-day — a ee ro the sorkof Miguel Lenora Sey for instance, Leén-Porilla 1556 nd 196 * Lee (2008) argues that modern scholars have, in general, Gece aaa Sources dealing with Nezahualcoyotl Se ee a ie eae ee ispanic Tetzco Perpetuated a history of pre-Hispai era in which it was produced.