Indigenous resistance and defense of the land after the fall of Mexico-Tenochtitlan

The year 2021 is shown as a great opportunity for reflection to the historical and cultural memory of the country, to commemorate the 500 years of the fall of Tenochtitlan, the great city of the Aztec empire that on August 13, 1521 succumbed to the siege  of Hernán Cortes and his Spanish troops. The General Archive of the Nation from its  documentary repository denotes its interest in delving into the knowledge and preservation of the history of Mexico. Among the documentary collections protected by the AGN, we find  manuscripts, codices and original printed that at the time were issued and managed by various institutions of theovohispano regime, for this occasion we turn our attention to documents contained in the funds "Real Audiencia" or "Hospital de Jesús"; which account for the regulation of land tenure and its struggles, from the moment the configuration of the Novohispano territory begins. 

The conquest of the Mesoamerican peoples, understood as a process of constant subjugation/diplomacy, culturization and expansion of Spanish jurisdiction involved a permanent struggle for the lands and their allocation, both for Spaniards and for indigenous people.   In the course of the sixteenth to the eighteenth century jurisdictional conflicts were common, between the indigenous and Spanish inhabitants, among which stand out the lawsuits for usurped lands, sale of villages, excess in the collection of taxes among other abuses and punishments. The struggle for land  that was documented in these AGN funds gives an account of the history of negotiation and resistance on the part of the native peoples towards  colonization. Through the  documentary collections,  the AGN offers a look at the process of configuration of the territory of New Spain and the definition of jurisdictions after the subjugation of the native peoples.

The fall of Tenochtitlan occurred on August 13, 1521. Lo that began as a diplomatic relationship between the emperor Moctezuma  and the expeditionary Hernán Cortés,it became a series ofconfrontations between the Mexica people and Spanish troops, the latter supported by the native peoples   who allied themselves as the Tlaxcaltecas; Huexotzincas; Cholulas; Totonacos; Mixtecs; Otomies; Tlahuicos; Coluixcos and Matlatzincas, who, as recounted in this  document dated 1809, had apologized for their hostilities and established a confederation that was as useful to the Spanish as it was unfavorable to the Aztecs. From this date begins the period of the history of Mexico known as the colony that lasted three centuries from 1521 to 1821,  300 years in which the  españoles extended their rule in north America and submitted to their jurisdiction, civil and religious, the original inhabitants.

The chronicles of the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors to the different jurisdictions that made up pre-Hispanic Mexico allow us to know more about the native peoples and their inhabitants during the process ofconquest; the pictographs and codices used to illustrate the delimitations of the lands, the pre-Hispanic lineages and evangelization, give proof of this. One of these narratives is the history of the town of Milpa Alta, foundedor by a chieftain named Quahipeltzintli, chosen by the old to unite the villages of Chicomoztoc, Estapanuca and Santa Martha Xocotepetlalpan for the settlement of the territory. This image belongs to the narrations of the arrival of the Spaniards in 1521 who took the land by means of combat and illustrated the image of the pre-Hispanic authorities of the region, the event continuedwith the entry ofthe evangelizers, who settled a church in the northern part on a hill named the Tehtlixohiyacatzin, naming the lady of  agosto along with Santa Marta the patron saints of the whole town of the Milpatexcalpanuca.

Severe changes were unleashed on the ancient city immediately after its fall: the destruction of the Chapultepec aqueduct that provided water to the city was ordered and several properties were established for the  construction of institutions that would impart justice in the nascent  New Spain. The Spanish Crown began to distribute the conquered territory,  Hernán Cortes was one ofthe firstbeneficiaries, King Carlos I of Spain  granted him, in 1529, the territories of the Calzada that leaves the  Cityof Mexicofor Tacuba, and of the new house that was of Moctezuma that adjoined the Plaza Mayor and the street of Ixtapalapa, as  retribution  for the conquest of  Tenochtitlan.  

In the desire of Cortés to continue with the domains of his Marquisate, he had the need to ask favors to the novohispana high society, one of them went to a wealthy Spaniard named Rodrigo de Hermosilla, who made him a loan in gold duchies, debt that was established through a document signed by Cortés on March 9,1 530, which mentioned the reason for the debt and the promise to pay once it will cease to be in need.  

Several years passed without the debt being covered, Hernán Cortés moved  to the city of Seville and despite the constant calls and requests to cover the debt, this payment was never made. In December 1547, Hernán Cortés died in Seville, but the debt would not die along with him, since his marquisate was inherited to his legitimate son Martín Cortés, under the will signed and sealed on September 12 of the same year. Upon learning of this, Rodrigo de Hermosilla raises a complaint against the heir of Cortés so that the debt was paid, eventually the case gave a ruling in favor of Don Martín Cortés declaring free of all debt and for finiquitado the process.

The taking of the assets and successions of Don Martín Cortés took time to be granted, in addition to the fact that his inheritance was separated by the king, putting Álvaro Ruíz as executor and proxy. Despite having in writing that the debts that his father had had to be paid, many of them were not settled, in the same way disputes were unleashed of lands belonging to the Marquisate of the Valley, among which there were requests for claim of belonging by the Indians, as happened in the territory of Cuernavaca where Martín Cortés finally obtained a deed of agreement between the principals of the town on the lands and houses that the Indians asked for.  

The Codex Tecomaxtlahuaca, was made to present a judicial resolution  on the heritage of Francisco de Arellano, chieftain of that town, who asked to be considered that in his lands located in Tecpancaltitlan, today Juxtlahuaca region in Oaxaca, the tribute is paidra basedon work, since if this was removed he ran the risk of losing them, because in them always lived Indians who paid to till the soils.

The document was made of the maguey paper tribute received by his ancestors, of a genealogical and tributary nature, it records information about their chieftains and their succession, from 1403 to 1578. Representations of corn, beans, cotton and chili peppers, textile products, wood charges and personal services of men and women are shown, all these elements are connected with numerical glyphs of 20 and 400 that represent the tax amount they had to pay.  

The map that covers the regions of Santiago Quanepopohualco, Xomolco and San Martin Quatzotzoco,located  in the current state of Morelos,  made in 1532,  also contains information on the heritage of Francisco de Arellano,  who in this case requests the return of the lands taken by the Indians who worked them. The pictogram was made of maguey paper.

The codex of the inhabitants of San Antonio Zoyatzingo, a town that is located within what is now the State of Mexico, was made in 1557 to represent the families of that town that survived the diseases and invasions that occurred before the Catholic conversion and as proof that land was given for the construction of 4 neighborhoods. The boxes show figures that are in different positions, some with weapons and others with animals, also alludes to Don Felipe Guamaxal and Don Juan Nahuacatzin, who are allegedly the people in charge of the town.


In 1697, it was used by Don Lucas Calvo to request Domingo de Cordova legal representative of the authorities,to make a map to delimit the lands of the town of Tenango Tepopula of the jurisdiction of Chalco and also to return the domains that were  taken by said authorities.

This map named as "Sugar Mills of Tacuba" was made, in 1578, at the request of the donation made by Juan Tello de Guzmán for the construction of an artificial outlet of water so that the drainage channel was used for the use of a mill. The map is part of the large collection of pictographic documents of a juridical-administrative nature that were elaborated in the colonial stage, made by a painter of indigenous origin, who tried to make drawings of European constructions, taking advantage of the painting to show the special political status of the tacuba region in pre-Hispanic times, where some glyphs are perceived in relation to Tenochtitlan.

Bernardino Arias Dávila promoted a lawsuit to request land in the neighborhood of Santa María Magdalena, belonging to the head of Cuitláhuac that, due to its lineage linked to pre-Hispanic caciques, claimed as his own. He intended to use this land to introduce cattle, but this land was already occupied by chinampas belonging to the natural inhabitants. Bernardino presented this map painted in colors and made in 1579, to delimit the  neighborhood of Santa María Magdalena within the town of Cuitlahuac, located practically on the banks of a river, part today of what is Chalco and Tláhuac, of the towns Tepetlan, Tequixquipan and Santo Domingo, and show that those lands belonged to him.

The resistance of the native peoples against the excessive tributes that were imposed on them can be seen in The Codex Teloloapan,  of the sixteenth century,  which contains five paintings that are part of a group of documents prepared by the indigenous people of the region to denounce the religious Rodrigo Ortiz, who demanded too much tribute from these populations, in it the tradition of pre-Columbian writing, based on images, is combined with the alphabetic writing introduced by the Spaniards. This Codex gives an  account of the goods  that each people delivered as tribute, being an example of the Mesoamerican accounting system that persisted for much of the viceregal period.   

This is the testimony of the formation of a hybrid culture, the one forged by the peoples of the area known as The Province of La Plata, including by the royal miners of Taxco, Sultepec and Zacualpan, and which accounts for the intense commercial activity thatexisted, and the few authorities that acted with adherence to the law, so that the indigenous people elaborated frequent petitions and complaints before the Archbishopric of Mexico against the abuses of caciques, miners and religious.

The Codex of Coetzala,  embodied in a four-page booklet containing calendrical signs, other hieroglyphs and a long text in Nahuatl,fue presented by the natives of the town of Nuestra Señora de la Limpia Concepción Cuetzalan, jurisdiction of Chiautla, current state of Puebla, with the purpose of proving the antiquity of its settlement, during a dispute over land ownership held in the sixteenth century with Santa María Cuetzalan, Santa Mónica Cuetzalan, San Miguel Cuetzalan and Santiago Centeocala. 

These villages belonged to the tributary province of the Triple Alliance of Quiauhteopan, and was a rich area for indigenous mining. Reading the alphabetic texts in Nahuatl, which have a translation in the file that records the land dispute, allows us to observe that the pictographic signs have nothing to do with what is expressed. In all likelihood the text was added to the document at a later time, during a boundary search between La Concepción Cuetzalan and the neighboring town of Santa Monica in 1748.

The indigenous population had grown demographically at the end of the seventeenth century and was trying to recover those lands absorbed by haciendas, ranches or other peoples, and the Novohispano government was looking for mechanisms to regularize the possession of the land. Indigenous documents, even those unrelated to land tenure, were used as evidence of the antiquity of peoples and  of  legitimate territorial possession.

It was in the interest of the peoples to show that they were headwaters and not populations subject to them, ancient and not recent foundations, and that their boundaries or boundaries were those they defended. For this reason they sought to have their own documents that mentioned these boundaries and the foundation of the town, a solemn and significant event whose relevance increased when great characters participated in it, such as viceroys or Hernán Cortés himself.

The Techialoyan Codex of Cuajimalpa describes a solemn meeting of authorities of the town to confirm the territorial limits of the entity, the places it comprised, the neighborhoods that integrated it and the towns that were taxed by Hernán Cortes. The objective of this ceremony, a fusion of ancient cultural practices of Mesoamerican and European origin, was the legitimization of ownership or possession of land. Text and pictograph are complemented in this document,and the signatures of the principals in question appear. The iconography is rich in plant representations such as magueyes, nopales and trees; architectural, specifically churches, houses and a palace; and human, among which are representations of indigenous and European characters.