Mexico's Indigenous Communities

Their Lands and Histories, 1500-2010

Ethelia Ruiz Medrano, Russ Davidson

• Publisher: University Press of Colorado
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781607320173
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia mondiale

A rich and detailed account of indigenous history in central and southern Mexico from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries, Mexico's Indigenous Communities is an expansive work that destroys the notion that Indians were victims of forces beyond their control and today have little connection with their ancient past. Indian communities continue to remember and tell their own local histories, recovering and rewriting versions of their past in light of their lived present.

Ethelia Ruiz Medrano focuses on a series of individual cases, falling within successive historical epochs, that illustrate how the practice of drawing up and preserving historical documents-in particular, maps, oral accounts, and painted manuscripts-has been a determining factor in the history of Mexico's Indian communities for a variety of purposes, including the significant issue of land and its rightful ownership. Since the sixteenth century, numerous Indian pueblos have presented colonial and national courts with historical evidence that defends their landholdings.

Because of its sweeping scope, groundbreaking research, and the author's intimate knowledge of specific communities, Mexico's Indigenous Communities is a unique and exceptional contribution to Mexican history. It will appeal to students and specialists of history, indigenous studies, ethnohistory, and anthropology of Latin America and Mexico

1 Historical Background

INDIAN ACCESS TO COLONIAL JUSTICE
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

A few years after the conquest of Mexico, a Spanish judge, Don Alonso de Zuazo, heard and pronounced judgment in a dispute concerning matters of land that arose among members of the native nobility. The conflict was apparently serious enough that it not only dragged on for some time but also resulted in the deaths of antagonists on both sides. In the course of the dispute, the Indian nobles presented several codices to the judge (“paintings” was the term used during the colonial period to describe these manuscripts). After he had examined the codices, the judge noted in laudatory fashion that the numerous details and fine points they contained allowed them to be treated like any other comprehensible and admissible legal document: “they provide evidence as much as any other writings provide it.” The parties involved in the litigation took a different line, however, maintaining that the codices neither reflected their problem nor offered a possible solution. Consequently, the judge ordered that the tlacuilo (the person who painted the manuscripts, also indigenous scribe), whom he referred to as “amantecas” (artisan), repaint the codex, but this remedy failed to placate the Indian litigants. The judge then decided to bring in an enormous dog (lebrel) he had previously let loose on more than 200 criminals and Indians convicted of idolatry. The dog had been fattened on human flesh. With the terrifying sight of the ferocious animal as a backdrop, the judge informed the Indians that if they did not “paint the truth denoting the markers and boundaries of that controversy,” the dog would be unleashed to kill them. Instantly, as if by magic, the artist painted a manuscript that was “altogether certain, and the parties approved it.” The legal dispute was thus fully resolved, and the litigants on both sides emerged satisfied. Indeed, so content were they with the Spanish magistrate’s clear judgment that the Indians decided to convert to Christianity.¹

The evidence and proceedings in this case illustrate several points that merit our attention. First, they indicate that the native population was drawn into the judicial system in New Spain at an early date; second, that traditional indigenous codices (pictorial manuscripts) and maps were important evidence in trials; and third, that protocols existed—at least at this juncture—that enabled Indians to obtain justice in a manner they could comprehend, although on occasion this entailed the use of threats and other devices by the sovereign power whose final authority could not be questioned. Clearly, this third option does not seem to have unsettled the Indians or struck them as peculiar; in fact, to resolve matters on the basis of doctrine, authoritarian pronouncements may have accorded with their own view of the world.

JUSTICE IN ANCIENT MESOAMERICA

To understand how the justice system worked in Mesoamerica prior to the Spanish conquest is a very complex undertaking, made even more difficult by the fact that the application of the system undoubtedly varied from region to region. I do not intend to plunge into an extended discussion of this issue, yet I think it is important to cover certain points briefly. Thanks to the work of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, we know that a special court called tlacxitlan (beneath, or at the foot of something) existed in the royal sanctum to hear testimony regarding “criminal activities,”² perhaps signifying in this context that those who were asking for justice were reaching up to a higher power from a lower position. In this court were “the oidores, or lord judges, and chief nobles” who had the responsibility of judging criminals and—should they choose—of sentencing them to death, which could be carried out in a number of ways. Or, by their verdict the guilty might instead be banished or imprisoned; the court decisions the nobles made apparently also included granting freedom to slaves.³

The Indian judges in this description were nobles who possessed the authority to hand down harsh judgments, including imposing public death by stoning, against persons who belonged to the same class; in this court, evidently, the only people who were tried and faced judgment were those who belonged to the nobility.⁴ Further, these judges from the native nobility tried to fulfill their duties and exercise justice honestly and impartially.

Sahagún also observed that complaints against commoners (macehual) were heard by “senators, and elders” in different quarters of the royal palace, called tecalli or teccalco. He further mentioned that in this latter court the judges quickly asked that the Indians produce “the manuscript, on which was written or painted the charges or grounds for the suit: such as possessions, or houses or corn fields,” and witnesses were called to provide evidence. In the chambers of the court of Texcoco, a “scribe or artist” was employed to record findings through specific reference to the codices, a practice also noted by the oidor Alonso de Zorita.⁵ The judges’ work was characterized by its honesty, or fidelity to the truth, since if they acted otherwise the king (tlatoani) would have them put to death for malfeasance and abuse of duty.⁶ The Nahuatl section of Sahagún’s work conveys the impression that the judges of the tecalli took down testimony and evidence, after which—because of their noble status—it was given to the judges of the other court, the tlacxitlan, to render verdicts and pronounce sentences.⁷ Another manuscript, the Codex Mendoza, noted that judicial officials learned the skills of their office by practicing them from a young age and that the final appeal in any trial was decided by the powerful ruler Moctezuma.⁸

Similarly, Sahagún, Fray Toribio de Benavente Motolinía, Fray Diego Durán, and Zorita all placed great emphasis—in keeping with what their sources told them—on the high ethical standards with which judges in pre-conquest Mexico discharged their responsibilities, as they did on the summary deaths these same judges would suffer if they failed to act honestly.⁹ To act as judges, then, the tlatoani appointed nobles, non-nobles who had distinguished themselves in war and in capturing slaves, and people who had been educated in the schools run by priests and who had acquired learning, displayed the ability to listen and to express themselves intelligently, possessed good memories, were not given to drunkenness, and upheld the honor of their family line.¹⁰ Only in exceptional cases, involving complicated disputes that were difficult to resolve, did the tlatoani review the testimony and—in consultation with some of the judges—render the verdict himself.¹¹

Thus, from the foregoing an interesting fact or distinction emerges; namely, that members of the nobility were tried in a different venue from the rest of native society and in all judicial affairs were judged solely by other nobles. In contrast, disputes among commoners were resolved by judges of lesser rank. In this world, apparently, justice was differentiated on the basis of social class, a state of affairs that, as we shall see, would change during the colonial period.

Further insight into the nature of justice in pre-Hispanic Mexico is provided in a learned study by Jerome Offner, whose examination of the topic is based on early indigenous sources involving the community of Texcoco. Offner points out that in the case of Texcoco, the system of justice was centralized in the figure of the tlatoani who ruled over that political domain, or altepetl.¹² The tlatoani relied on a pair of tribunals to administer justice. The first, known as Teoicpalpan (divine tribunal), heard cases that involved serious crimes and disputes; the second, called tlatocaicpalpan (the king’s tribunal), dealt with less important cases.¹³ In addition, the system included twelve judges who represented the six principal administrative districts that made up the territory of Texcoco. Each district was thus represented by two judges. All twelve judges heard cases and handed down sentences in the palace of Texcoco’s tlatoani. They became judges only after being carefully vetted, and some were blood relatives of the ruler. In carrying out their duties, they were assisted by a large number of subalterns and were supported by the yields of agricultural lands designated specifically for that purpose.¹⁴ Motolinía emphasizes how quickly the Texcoco judges pronounced sentences; they attempted to resolve all disputes, even the most complicated, in a period—to which the name nappualtlatulli was given—not to exceed eighty days.¹⁵

The Texcocan justice system enabled its authorities to maintain control over both a diverse range of ethnic groups and a considerable number of local rulers who governed smaller political units. The system had been carefully constructed, it seems, to serve as an instrument of social control for the tlatoque (high lords) of Texcoco and thus acted as a brake on certain types of antisocial behavior—such as alcoholism, murder, treasonous actions against the nobility, robbery, and adultery—all of which were seen to weaken and undermine the family, the broader society, and the altepetl itself.¹⁶

In this context, Motolinía provides further information with respect to Texcoco’s judges and judicial system, noting that both Nezahualcoyotl and his son, Nezahualpilli, enjoyed sufficient political strength to issue a great number of laws designed to ensure that order prevailed within their domain. Indeed, the administration of justice was so successful in Texcoco that the tlatoani of the neighboring territory of Tenochtitlan referred “numerous disputes there so that they could be settled.”¹⁷ Another interesting fact, noted by both Motolinía and Zorita, involves a ritual practiced in the judicial proceedings not only of Texcoco but of other places as well. When a verdict was declared, it was the custom to swear it by the “earth goddess” or the gods in general. This practice is clearly very similar to that found in colonial judicial proceedings, in which God and the holy cross were invoked in the pronouncement of judgments. It is not entirely clear whether this practice among the indigenous population was truly their own or was projected back on them by later authors.¹⁸ On balance, the ritual of pronouncing judgment or declaring truth in the name of the gods was, in fact, probably native to the Indian justice system. A similar practice was followed in another part of the Spanish empire. In the mid-sixteenth century, in the viceroyalty of Peru, the corregidor (Spanish official in charge of indigenous settlements) of Yucay made Indians involved in disputes swear in the name of their own gods, not those of the Christian religion, that they would state the truth.¹⁹

From the chronicles and other sources of the colonial period, we can infer that the Texcocan system of justice stood as a model and was emulated by other important altepetl in the region. Texcoco’s centralized system required that its judges meet with the tlatoani every twelve days to discuss disputes that did not lend themselves to simple, straightforward resolution.²⁰ In Zorita’s opinion, the way justice was administered varied little within and across the territory of the three most important altepetl—México-Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan. To understand the form of justice practiced in one of these altepetl, he observed, was to understand its equivalent in the other two.²¹

Motolinía likewise explained that Texcoco’s twelve judges enjoyed the services of twelve alguaciles mayores (chief constables), whose function was to place persons of privileged class (nobles) under arrest. To advertise their charge and office, they wore specially decorated blankets, “and wherever they went they met with compliance, as high-level agents of the ruler and his greater justice.” The alguaciles, Motolinía mentioned, were called achcauhtli and the judges Tecuytlatoque.²² In the outlying districts of Texcoco there were other judges who deliberated minor cases, but the bulk of judicial cases were reviewed and handled in the royal palace by the twelve high judges, in consultation with the tlatoani.²³

Nevertheless, as Susan Kellogg has pointed out, for all the similarities between the Spanish colonial justice system and its pre-Hispanic counterpart in central Mexico—that of the Nahuas in particular—the two systems still differed in important respects. The Nahua system was only one element within a wider system of penalties—which rested to a considerable degree on supernatural...