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Civil Congregation of the Western Chinantec, New Spain, 1599–1603

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Howard F. Cline
Howard F. Cline*
Affiliation:
Hispanic Foundation, Library of Congress
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Extract

CIVIL congregation of the Indians in New Spain was one phase of the continuing program which Spanish colonial officials had been conducting since earliest days in the New World to civilize and Christianize American native groups by urbanizing them. Application of this doctrine to New Spain as a whole in the years which began in the seventeenth century has been discussed elsewhere. Here the purpose is to fit the general procedures to a specific case by describing in detail the congregation process as it affected San Pedro Yolox, a small center of Chinantec Indian hamlets in the Sierra de Juarez, lying in the modern Mexican state of Oaxaca.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , October 1955 , pp. 115 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1955

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References

1 Cline, Howard F., “Civil Congregations of the Indians in New Spain, 1598–1606,” Hispanic American Historical Review, XXIX (Aug., 1949), 349–369CrossRefGoogle Scholar; hereafter cited as Cline, “Congregations.” See also Simpson, L. B., Studies in the Administration of the Indians: Part II: The Civil Congregation. Ibero-Americana No. 7 [Berkeley, 1934])Google Scholar, hereafter cited as Simpson, Congregation.

2 Basic materials for this study were obtained under a pre-doctoral grant by the Social Science Research Council (1943) and a subsequent grant-in-aid (1951), a Woodbury Lowery Fellowship from Harvard University (1947) and research grants (1950–51) from Northwestern University, for all of which grateful acknowledgement is made.

3 Visitas may be found in Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico) [hereafter abbreviated AGN], Tierras, passim, esp. Vols. 1–70. The one other known log is for Tlachinol, translated by Simpson, Congregation, pp. 106–128. See Cline, “Congregations,” note 18, for detailed list of visitas.

4 Cline, Howard F., “The terrgueros of Guelatáo, Oaxaca, Mexico: Notes on the Sierra de Juárez and its XVIIth century Indian Problems,” Acta Americana, IV (jul.-sep., 1946), 161–184Google Scholar, with maps, describes the area in more detail. See also Ford, Stanley L., “Informe sobre la tribu chinanteca, region de Yolóx, Ixtlán de Juárez,” Bolettn Indigenista, VIII (sep.-dic, 1948), 290–298.Google Scholar

5 Bevan, Bernard, The Chinantec and their habitat, Panamerican Institute of Geography and History, Publication 24 (Mexico, 1938)Google Scholar; Weitlaner, R. J. and Castro, C. A.G., Papeles de la Chinantla, I. Mayultianguis y Tlacoatzintepec, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Serie cientifíca, 3 (Mexico, 1954)Google Scholar.

6 Cline, Howard F., “The Chinantla of Northeastern Oaxaca, Mexico: Bio-bibliographical notes on modern investigations,” in Bernal, Ignacio and Hurtado, Eusebio Dávalos, eds., Homenaje a Manuel Gamio (Mexico, in press) critically reviews the literature.Google Scholar

7 Ortiz, Juan Ximenez, “Relación de Iztepexi, hecha del 27 al 30 de agosto de 1579,” Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, Tapeles de la Nueva España, IV (Madrid, 1905), 14 Google Scholar, “puede aver nuebecientos afios poco mas o menos que salieron tres senores del pueblo de Yoloxoniquila que es en la provincia de Chinantla” to found the Zapotec town of Ixtepeji in the southern Sierra de Juarez. Each of these “years” probably had 260 days.

8 Cline, Howard F., “Una subdivision tentativa de los Chinantecos históricos,” Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropologicos, XIII (1953), 281–285Google Scholar; Espinosa, Mariano, Apuntes historicos de las tribus chinantecas, mazatecas, y popolucas (Mexico, 1910), pp. 12–48.Google Scholar

9 Miranda, Jose, “La funcion economics del encomendero en los origenes del regimen colonial. Nueva Espana (1525–1531),” Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Anales, II (1941–46), 545 Google Scholar; de Icaza, Francisco A., Diccionario autobiogrdfico de conquistadores y pobladores de Nueva Espana (2 vols.; Madrid, 1923), I, 252 Google Scholar; Actas de Cabildo de la Ciudad de Mexico, I (Mexico, 1889), 61, 73–74, 145, 226; de Carranza, Baltasar Dorantes, Sumaria relación de las cosas de la Nueva Espana, con noticia individual de los descendientes legitimos de los conquistadores y primeros pobladores espanoles (Mexico, 1902), pp. 208, 448 Google Scholar; these are not exhaustive references. See Note 14.

10 MS., AGN, Indios, III, #531, f.125 (Mar. 30, 1591).

11 “Suma de visitas,” Papeles de la Nueva Espana, I, 50; Francisco de Mezquita, “Relacion de Atlatlauca y Malinaltepeque, hecha en 8 de septiembre de 1580,” ibid., IV, 163–176.

12 Cline, Howard F., “Congregations,” loc. cit., pp. 351–353Google Scholar. The Conde de Monterrey, in planning the visitas, himself surveyed the towns of Xochimilco in November, 1597 to determine what points to put in the Instructions, “Carta del Conde de Monte Rey a S.M., Apr. 25, 1598,” MS. [L.C. transcripts], Archivo General de Indias (Seville), Audiencia de Mexico, 58-3-13; the Instructions, including “secret” additions are dated Sept. 10 and Nov. 28, 1598, AGN, Indios, VI, Cuad. 2, ff. 272–276, and a printed version in AGN, Boletin, XVI (1945), 221.

13 de Ribera, Juan, “De la demarcacion y visita que se hizo de las Cabezeras de Yollosinecuila y San Pablo Macuiltianguis, 1599,” AGN, Tierras, 64, No. 4.Google Scholar This carries subheading (by Ribera), “Quaderno XV-XVI.” He put data on Malinaltepec in “Quadernos XVII-XVIII,” not located. The visita occupies 19 folios (verso and recto), and is summarized in the following paragraphs. Previous to this one, Ribera had been surveying Ixtepeji and Chicomesuchil (see above, Notes 4, 7).

14 Paso y Troncoso, Francisco del, Epistolario de Nueva Espana (16 vols.; Mexico, 1939–1942), IX, 19 Google Scholar, the so-called “Lista de Ybarra, 1560” indicates Macuiltianguis and Yolox [Cusmiquila] paid 1,000 pesos tribute, reflecting a population of about that many families, but also listed the encomienda in the name of Juan Rodriguez de Salas, who had in fact been dead for many years; this is Source B used by Cook, S. F. and Simpson, L. B., The Population of Central Mexico in the Sixteenth Century (Ibero-Americana No. 31 [Berkeley, 1948]Google Scholar), who list separately Macuiltianguis (224), Cusmiquila (224), and Yoloxnoquilla (789). Ca. 1575 it was reported that Atepec, Luvina [Uzciciltengo], Macuiltianguis, and Yoloxinequila had together about 1,000 tributaries, Luis Garcia Pimental, ed., Relacion de los ohispados de Tlaxcala, Michoacdn, Oaxaca y otros lugares en el sigh XVI (Documentos Histdricos de Mexico, II [Paris, 1904]), p. 93; the same source, however, lists separately 250 tributaries for Macuiltianguis (p. 65) and 350 for Yoloxinequila (p. 67), and 400 for Atepec (p. 65). A list, similar to Source B above, of ca. 1580 (ibid., p. 169) lists 500 tributaries for Macuiltianguis and Yolox [Cusmiquila] then possessed by Sebastian de Salas, son. The tribute list of April 17, 1597 in Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, Epistolario, XIII, 38, 39 shows for Yolox 84 tributaries and for Macuiltianguis 39, apparently the same list carried by Ribera and here corrected by him. Cook and Simpson, Population, incorrectly add Yolox twice, giving the Macuiltianguis-Yolox area a population of 5300 rather than ca. 4,000 for 1565. See below, Note 25.

15 Modern San Juan Quiotepec is Chinantec, less than one short league from old Yoloxinequila; local tradition calls it a “new town,” i.e., formed in the 18th century by emigrants from Malinaltepec.

16 Malinaltepec then was on a mountaintop, where ruins now indicate its existence; the modern town on the west banks of the Rio Grande faces San Juan Quiotepec.

17 Cline, “Congregations,” pp. 353–354.

18 MS., AGN, Congregaciones [1. vol. in Ramo], f. 30 recto and verso. A copy of the order in Municipal Archive, S. Pedro Yolox, gives name as Cristobal de Ayala.

19 Alonso de Quiroz was the grandson of Bachiller Pedro Diaz de Sotomayor, vecino of Oaxaca, much esteemed by Cortes; Dorantes Carranza, Relacion, p. 225; Quiroz apparently lived in Ixtepeji, where he acted as corregidor during his vacations, MS., AGN, General de Parte, V, f. 146–146v.

20 Alonso de Quiroz, “Congregacion de el pueblo y cabezera de San Pedro de Yolos Xiniquila, y de sus estancias, San Juan, San Francisco, y San Miguel, en su estancia llamada Santiago Chinantepeque, una legua de la otra congregacion de Macuiltianguez, … se comiensa hoy catorce dias del mes de octubre de este año de mil seiscientos tres,” MS., Municipal Archives, San Pedro Yolox, Oaxaca. This is an 1810 copy of an unlocated original, guarded with other documents, in a chest buried outside the village, under constant vigilance. My copy was obtained when the inhabitants found that for a law suit they could not properly paleograph their papers, which I copied for them into modern Spanish on February 23, 1943.

21 This site, shown on a MS. mapa of ca. 1590 (Mun. Archive, Yolox), lies halfway between modern Santiago Comaltepec and San Pedro Yolox; no one recalls the meaning of the term. See also Vicente de la Rosa y Saldivas, “Del Mexicano al Castellano los nombres de los barrios, parajes, o linderos … del pueblo y Cabecera de San Pedro de Yolos, Mexico, Aug. 8, 1810,” MS., Mun. Archive, Yolox, Punto 18, “OLORA no es termino Mexicano.”

22 A Yolox version of this location says it was “en el llano que hoy queda en el barrio de Santa Rosa, que en chinanteco se llama Mihi quia güat que en castellano se tradusco ‘Llano de enmedio de la Iglesia,’” Antonio Bautista and José Antonio Mendoza, “Historia del Pueblo de Yolox … algunos apuntes del archivo y acompletado con algunas explicaciones que se han dado los ancianos de este pueblo que por tradición de generación han conservado algunos apuntes en la memoria, Yolox, agosto 5 de 1884,” MS., Mun. Archive. This is primarily a summary of the congregation document, made by the Presidente Municipal and an anciano.

23 Names of each person are given, some unusual: Juan de Contreras (namesake of priest?), Tomas de Aquino (a bachelor with 1 child). Some 32 children, another bachelor, nine spinsters, one widower, and five widows appear.

24 Total 68 persons; three widows, three spinsters made the six half tributaries.

25 Total persons, 297. The ratio of persons per tributary (297/101.5) is 2.9; the ratio used by Cook and Simpson, Population (see Note 14) is 4. Using the 1603 ratio of three earlier populations of Yolox would apparently be 1,150 persons (1575), 252 (1597), per Note 14. The Cook and Simpson total for Macuiltianguis-Yolox should be reduced from 5,300 to 2,900 (1565–1575).

26 Apparently the encomenderos had reformed and given the church some equipment (see Note 10), as the complete inventory shows four boxes of fairly rich accumulation in 1603: “Primeramente un retablo del Bienaventurado San Pedro, un lienzo y bastidor, pintado con otros santos– –Un retablo de San Juan Evangelista pintado en lienzo– –otro lienzo de Nuestra Senora pintado tres sielos de retablos pintados en manta– –tres cruxifijos pequeños– –un Niño Jesus de vulto– –dos pares dorados de palo– –una cruz de palo dorado– –una manga de cruz de terciopelo asul bordada– –otra manga de cruz de tafetán negro– –otra cruz dorada de palo– –una casulla de tafetán negro, manipulo, y estola– –otra casulla de damasco blanco bordada– –estola, y manipulo– –otra casulla de damasco colorado bordada de terciopelo, estola y manipulo– –un paño– –de atril de pajara, de la china– –una alba de lienzo con sus faldones– –una capa de coro– –de celilla de oro colorada de china– –otra alba sin faldones– –unos manteles nuevos de– –Ruán– –dos Corporales labrados de seda, con sus palias de seda un– –paño labrado de– –seda unos manteles Alemaniscos– –un paño de Cadiz de damasco colorado de china– –un amito de Ruán– –dos cojinillos de tafetán– –cuatro ropillas de Damasco con que bailan– –un celo de manta del monumento– –un atril pequeño– –cuatro siriales de palo dorados– –dos misales, uno nuevo y otro viejo, otra casulla de damasquillo de Colon, estola, y manipulo de china– –otra alba de Ruán y su amito– –un frontal azul con sus fontillas de china– –ocho trompetas nuevas– –seis trompetas italianas viejas– –ocho flautas nuevas– –dos salabuchis nuevos– –un frontal viejo con sus fronteleras– –una table de las palabras de consegracion– –un caliz de plata con su patena– –una ara consagrada– –ocho libros viejos de canto– –ocho quesales de pluma con dos rodelas– –un espejo– –dos campanas grandes– –una campanilla de misa– –cuatro cineferas de– – estaño– –un lienzo pintado de San Francisco– –cuatro candeleros de arofar– –cuatro cajas en que está todo esto– –.”

27 This advice was not always followed; in 1789 various barrios and communities of the parish refused to pay Yolox for wax used in candles for Holy Week, alleging that its officials “se emborrachaban con el dinero en vez de pagar las misas y otras cosas,” MS., “Pleito, 1789 y 1791–93” Mun. Archive, Yolox.