¹ The documentation for the account which follows comes from the Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City (hereafter cited AGN), Ramo Inquisición, vol. 302, exp. 5 and vol. 307, exp. 2. There is some repetition of materials in the two files but on the whole they are complementary and should be viewed as one dossier. Because the folios are not numbered in the second file I have regularized all citations in terms of their individual identities as separately notarized documents. They are identified by giving the name of the witness or principal, date, and place of the transaction.

² Don Gabriel Arías de Riquelme, 4 January 1614, Tula.

³ Don Gabriel Arías de Riquelme, 29 January 1614, 27 January 1614, Tula.

⁴ Fray Luis de Ahumeda, 2 March 1614. Nine months before, Sebastián Gutiérrez, priest and holder of the benefice of Tepozotlán, had complained that there was neither a royal nor apostolic notary in the town. With little enthusiasm therefore he appointed Jusepe de Zubieta, Spaniard, vecino, and “person sufficient for the office of notary.” Bach. Sebastián Gutiérrez, 5 June 1613, letter.

⁵ Juan used both terms indiscriminately to describe her. That morisca was an acceptable synonym may indicate that her racial makeup was more complex, suggesting two or three generations of racial mixing in a mining camp active since the 1530s.

⁶ Juan Vázquez, 4 March 1614, Mexico City. María may have been a prostitute. No hint is given that she lived in concubinage, even for relatively short periods. In this Juan”s silence is not evidence of inference. However if one or another man had lived with María while Juan was a child he surely would have remembered and possibly assumed him to be his father.

⁷ Gerhard, Peter, A Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain (Cambridge, 1972), 262,Google Scholar 268. Gerhard gives the following figures for 1569:211 Spanish vecinos, 692 Negroes (individuals), 1,335 Indian miners plus another 2,872 tributaries in nearby towns. This would have been fifteen or twenty years before Juan was born and perhaps close to the time when his mother was born. Juan Vázquez testified before the Inquisition in 1614 that he was twenty seven or twenty eight. They noted that he looked older. Subtracting twenty seven from 1614 one gets 1587, a reasonably accurate approximation of his birth year. From another tack, if Juan was 19 in 1604 when he married, his year of birth would have been 1588. The two chronologies are close enough to corroborate one another. Of course his mother's date of birth could have been earlier but that would not alter the point about the nature of society in the mining district.

⁸ Donovan, J., tran., The Cataechism of the Council of Trent (Dublin, 1829), 193–202.Google Scholar

⁹ Francisca Ximénez said under oath that Juan claimed to have been raised from age 7 in the mines of San Luis. The age corroborates Juan's testimony before the Inquisition. For the apparent contradiction as to place see note 13 (Francisca Ximénez, 29 January 1614, Taximaroa).

¹⁰ María de la O, 31 January 1614, Taximaroa; María Martín, 1 February 1614, Taximaroa.

¹¹ Juan Vázquez, 4 March 1614, Mexico City.

¹² Fray Ambrosio Carrillo, 9 February 1614, Taximaroa.

¹³ Francisca Ximénez, 29 January 1614, Taximaroa; María de Pineda, 31 January 1614, Taximaroa; Fray Juan de Hierro, 6 February 1614, Taximaroa. Francisca must have had in mind San Luis de la Paz, founded in 1590, and close enough to San Miguel for Juan to have spent a good deal of his time there, especially if Juan’s master had land to the north of San Miguel. In this Juan should be the final authority. Francisca’s information should be squared with Juan’s, not vice versa.

^l4 Catalina Vázquez, 21 February 1614, Tepozotlán; Francisco García, 22 February 1614, Tepozotlán; Gaspar Sánchez, 24 February 1614, Tepozotlán; Gonzalo Rubio de la Baquera, 24 February 1614, Tepozotlán; Francisco de Sosa, 13 July 1613,24 February 1614, Tepozotlán; Juan de Busto de Mendoza, 25 February 1614, Tepozotlán.

¹⁵ Miguel de Contreras, 9 March 1615, Mexico City; Francisca Ximénez, 29 January 1614, Taximaroa.

¹⁶ Antón Ximénez de Valdecañas, 30 January 1614, Taximaroa.

¹⁷ Norman Martin shows a connection between the legal and social discrimination practiced against the racially mixed and the problems they posed as vagrants, lawbreakers, and potential disrupters of Indian communities (Los vagabundos en la Nueva España (Mexico, 1957), 91–134 passim, especially 99n where he lists discriminatory legislation). Examples of such legislation for New Spain during Juan’s lifetime which prohibited Negroes, mulattoes, mestizos, and Indians from practicing the craft of presser (aprensador) (21 September 1605), needlemaker (agujero) (18 April 1616), and silk dyer (27 April 1615) can be found in Konetzke, Richard, ed., Colección de documentos para la historia de la formación social de hispanoamérica, 1493–1810 (3 vols, in 6; Madrid, 1953–1962),Google Scholar II, t. 1, 116–117, 189–190, 193. Mellafe states in strongest terms that in spite of the odd exception, “the constant presence and repetition of prohibitive laws and ordinances limited all possibilities and all aspects of life for individuals of dark skin” ( Mellafe, Rolando, Breve historia de la esclavitud en América Latina (Mexico, 1973), 129–130).Google Scholar Colin MacLachlan makes the same point for a much later time (1799–1800). Out of a sample of 958 criminal cases he found that mulattoes “shared the same low occupational status as the Indian population” and that none of them “fell into the more favored category of traders, scribes, and those using a degree of educational skills” (Criminal Justice in Eighteenth Century Mexico: A Study of the Tribunal of the Acordada (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1974), 46.

Those on the fringe of hispanic society frequently roamed about terrorizing Indian communities from which they extorted enough to live. Borah stresses the prevalence of these depredations and the ineffectuality of legislation designed to control them. He also points out that the ever mobile muleteer was probably as disruptive to Indian society as the outright criminal and predatory element roaming the countryside ( Borah, Woodrow, “Race and Class,” Pacific Historical Review 4 (1954), 339.)Google Scholar When Lockhart divides colonial society into the fundamental divisions Indian and Spanish he simplifies, clears away a good deal of confusion, and provides the basis for his own brilliant synthesis of recent scholarship ( Altman, Ida and Lockhart, James, eds., Provinces of Early Mexico: Variants of Spanish American Regional Evolution (Los Angeles, 1976), 10–11.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Martin, , Vagabundos, 84 Google Scholar; MacLachlan, , Criminal Justice, 40–41.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Juan Vázquez, 4 March 1614, Mexico City.

²⁰ Powell, Philip W., Soldiers, Indians and Silver: the Northward Advance of New Spain, 1550–1660 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1952), 209–212 Google Scholar; Gerhard, , Guide, 233.Google Scholar San Luis Potosí was founded in 1592 but it seems a bit far from San Miguel to have been a factor in Juan”s maize deliveries.

²¹ Fray Alonso Ponce passed through Taximaroa in October, 1585. He and his companions noted that it was a large Tarascan settlement. They commented on the fountain in the square with its clear water and skillfully constructed stonework. The convent had been completed and had a cloister, sleeping rooms, and church, replete with notable altarpiece. The two resident friars also had a well tended garden which at the time boasted an abundant crop of water cress which grew well throughout the district (Relación breve y verdadera de algunas cosas de las muchas que sucedieron al padre fray Alonso Ponce en las provincias de la Nueva España… escrita por dos religiosos (2 vols.; Madrid, 1873), I, 525–526).

²² Fray Pedro de Xerez, 4 February 1614, Santiago Acahuato.

²³ Francisca Ximénez, 29 January 1614, Taximaroa; Antón Ximénez de Valdecañas, 30 January 1614, Taximaroa.

²⁴ María Martín, 1 February 1614, Taximaroa; María de Pineda, 31 January 1614, Taximaroa.

²⁵ Doña Gerónima de Cedeño, 4 February 1614, Taximaroa; María de la O, 31 January 1614, Taximaroa.

²⁶ María de Pineda, 31 January 1614, Taximaroa; Doña Gerónima de Cedeño, 4 February 1614, Taximaroa.

²⁷ An expression of this assumption is in the “Ordenanzas, preceptos, y direcciones” issued by the bishop of Michoacán in February, 1685. He warned that many married men abandon wives and children in Spain (or in various provinces of the New World) leaving them without any means of support. Then, aimlessly, they “wander about from one place to another without a position, trade, or occupation” (Archivo General de Indias (Seville), Mexico, 374.

²⁸ Fray Juan de Hierro, 6 February 1614, Taximaroa.

²⁹ Fray Pedro de Xerez, 4 February 1614, Santiago Acahuato.

³⁰ Francisco de Castro, 6 January 1614, Tula.

³¹ Francisca Ximñnez, 29 January 1614, Taximaroa. Fray Joan Rengel, the notary who recorded the testimony made in Taximaroa, made the observation.

³² Francisca Ximénez, 29 January 1614, Taximaroa: Doña Gerónima de Cedeño, 4 February 1614, Taximaroa.

³³ Francisca Ximénez, 29 January 1614, Taximaroa; Antón Ximénez de Valdecañas, 30 January 1614, Taximaroa.

³⁴ Martin, , Vagabundos, 116.Google Scholar

³⁵ Borah, Woodrow, “Francisco de Urdiñola’s Census of the Spanish Settlements in Nueva Vizcaya, 1604,” Hispanic American Historical Review 35 (1955), 400. CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁶ Fray Juan de Hierro, 6 February 1614, Taximaroa.

³⁷ Ysabel Ximénez, 31 January 1614, Taximaroa.

³⁸ Fray Juan de Hierro, 6 February 1614, Taximaroa.

³⁹ Fray Pedro de Xerez, 4 February 1614, Santiago Acahuato; Ysabel Ximénez, 32 January 1614, Taximaroa. Doña Gerónima was the daughter of Hernando Cedeño and Ysabel Ximénez. They seem to have created the estate which, at least in part, passed into don Diego”s use at the time of the marriage.

⁴⁰ Fray Pedro de Xerez, 4 February 1614, Santiago Acahuato.

⁴¹ Juan Vázquez, 4 March 1614, Mexico City. Unfortunately don Diego did not testify in this case. Therefore his age, place of birth, physical description, and perspectives of Juan and the marriage are not available from him directly.

⁴² Juan Vázquez, 4 March 1614, Mexico City.

⁴³ A survey of Michoacán ordered by the bishop in 1630 mentions other Ximénezs in Taximaroa. One Antonio Ximénez had a cattle estancia which supported about ISO head and grew 100 fanegas of maize. Antonio’s bastard son, Diego, lived on this land and looked after his father’s interests. He also grew his own maize and grazed 250 head of cattle and ISO mares. In 1627 we hear of a Diego Ximénez, probably the same one, who was corregidor of Maravatio and justicia mayor of Taximaroa. At the mining camp of Guadalcázar there was a farm owned by a Diego Ximénez which harvested 1,000 fanegas of maize per year. Also in Taximaroa at this time there was a Francisco Ximénez, a crown chartered notary. El obispado de Michoacán en el siglo XVII: Informe inédito de beneficios, pueblos y lenguas, nota preliminar de Ramón, López Lara (Morella, Michoacán, 1973), 64,Google Scholar 151; AGN, Tierras 1451, exp. 2, f. 77,3 June 1627, f. 85,8 August 1628. We should emphasize the circumstantial nature of the above. However likely the connection, it has not been established that these other Ximénezs are from the same family nor, if they were, precisely how they were related.

⁴⁴ This deduction is made from the following information. Ysabel Ximénez, the matriarch, had, in 1614, been a resident of Taximaroa for twenty six years. Her daughter, doña Gerónima, age 26, although born in Toluca was raised in Taximaroa and had always resided there. Francisca Ximénez, the bastard cousin, four years older than doña Geronina, also born in Toluca, also resided in Taximaroa from an early age. The move to Taximaroa by the Cedeño-Ximénez family should be dated therefore about the time of Doña Gerónima's birth, or 1588. In 1614 Antón Ximénez de Valdecañas, Ysabel's cousin, had been a resident in Taximaroa for 21 years or, since 1593. He may have been in New Spain longer than that, however, since he married a woman from Mexico City, where Ysabel too was born. Antón settled in Taximaroa no doubt because others of his family were already there. He too may have come from Toluca.

⁴⁵ Fray Ambrosio Carrillo, 9 February 1614, Taximaroa.

⁴⁶ Fray Pedro de Xerez, 4 February 1614, Santiago Acahuato. Fray Pedro considered the nuptual mass synonomous with the marriage ceremony.

⁴⁷ Francisca Ximénez, 29 January 1614, Taximaroa.

⁴⁸ Fray Pedro de Xerez, 4 February 1614, Santiago Acahuato. In the 1540s an Alonso de Mata disputed the encomienda revenues of Tuzantla with Francisco de Santa Cruz and Juan de Ortega. Property acquired and used by Alonso near Tuzantla may be the same property Joan Fernández de Mata, possibly a descendant, was trying to retain in 1606 (AGN, Reales Cédulas Duplicados, exp. 797, 6 June 1606).

⁴⁹ Obispado de Michoacán, 102, 104.

⁵⁰ Antón Ximénez de Valdecañas, 30 January 1614, Taximaroa; Francisca Ximénez, 29 January 1614, Taximaroa; Doña Gerónima de Cedeño, 4 February 1614, Taximaroa.

⁵¹ Doña Gerónima de Cedeño, 4 February 1614, Taximaroa.

⁵² Ysabel Ximénez, 32 January 1614, Taximaroa; María de la O, 31 January 1614, Taximaroa.

⁵³ Ringrose, David R., “Carting in the Hispanic World: An Example of Divergent Development,” Hispanic American Historical Review 50(1970), 31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Mellafe points out that throughout Spanish America the labor of free Negroes and mulattoes was incorporated only irregularly, during times of expanding markets, the opening up of new regions, or, presumably, in older stable regions of production on a seasonal basis. Inevitably then people like Juan had to keep moving about in order to remain employed ( Mellafe, , Breve historia, 117).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Francisco de Castro, 22 February 1614, Tepozotlán. By 1627 obraje labor was difficult to procure because the work was hard and workers were abused by overseerers. To meet labor needs, therefore, “local officials imposed obraje sentences for a variety of crimes, often in cooperation with factory owners” ( MacLachlan, , Criminal Justice, 27).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ “… entendió no vivía bien y aunque se lo amonestó no aprobechó” (Juan Vázquez, 9 March 1614, Mexico City).

⁵⁶ Some of Juan”s phrases are: “ladino en lengua castellana, … la suso dicha [Francisca] se revolvió con un yndio llamado Bartolomé cojo y manco ladino en lengua castellana al que quería la dicha su muger (Juan Vázquez, Tula, 6 January 1614; Francisco de Castro, 6 January 1614, Tula).

⁵⁷ Doña Gerónima de Cedeño, 4 February 1614, Taximaroa; Francisca Ximénez, 29 January 1614, Taximaroa.

⁵⁸ Juan Vázquez, 4 June 1614, Mexico City.

⁵⁹ Francisco de Sosa, 13 July 1613, Tepozotlán; Roque Muños, 26 February 1614, Tepozotlán; Juan Vázquez, 4 March 1614, Mexico City.

⁶⁰ Augustine de Villoja, 13 July 1613, Tepozotlán.

⁶¹ Juan Vázquez, 4 March 1614, Mexico City.

⁶² Francisco García, 22 February 1614, Tepozotlán.

⁶³ Juan Vázquez, 4 March 1614, Mexico City.

⁶⁴ Juan Vázquez, 6 January 1614, Tula.

⁶⁵ Melchora de los Reyes, 14 July 1613, Tepozotlán; Inéz Juárez, 14 July 1613, Tepozotlán.

⁶⁶ Juan Vázquez, 13 June 1613, Tepozotlán.

⁶⁷ Juan Vázquez, 6 March 1614, Mexico City.

⁶⁸ Ibid.

⁶⁹ Bach. Sebastian Gutiérrez, 14 July 1613, Tepozotlán.

⁷⁰ Gaspar Sánchez, 14 July 1613, Tepozotlán. In letters to the king in 1592 and 1593 Viceroy Velasco suggested that because so many mulattoes and Negroes were without a “fixed residence” (vezindad fija) they could not be taxed or forced to work. By wandering about the kingdom they avoided the responsibilities of settled life. Earlier, in 1571, Fray Mendieta expressed his concern to the Council of the Indies about the same problem, the evils which came from Spaniards (instead of Negroes or mulattoes) who moved about the kingdom maintaining no fixed residence. Not only were they a bad example to the Indians, in his view, but they lived without restraint of any kind “each living according to his own law” (Quoted in Martin, N., Vagabundos, 60, 118).Google Scholar So for practical and philosophical reasons it has highly desirable to settle people within the polity and control of towns.

^7l Melchora de los Reyes, 14 July 1613, Tepozotlán; Inéz Juárez, 14 July 1613, Tepozotlán.

⁷² Gaspar Sánchez, 24 February 1614, Tepozotlán; Francisco Garcia, 22 February 1614, Tepozotlán; Gonzalo Rubio de la Baquera, 24 February 1614, Tepozotlán.

⁷³ Bach. Sebastian Gutiérrez, 13 Aug. 1613, Tepozotlán. Catalina's rebellion and Padre Gutiérrez’ maneuver can be seen as an attack on patriarchical authority in that he was not allowed to be whimsical or absolute on this question. Although parental permission was normally required for a daughter to marry, individuals, according to canon law, were free to contract marriage (within defined limits) as they pleased ( Morner, Magnus, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (Boston, 1967), 36,Google Scholar 38).

⁷⁴ Some examples of these kinds of statements in the records of the Inquisition can be found in AGN, Inquisición, Vols. 304, fol. 64; vol. 185, exp. 5D;vol. 176, exps. 7 and 8; vol. 186, exp. 5B and C.

⁷⁵ Francisco de Castro, 6 January 1614, Tula.

⁷⁶ Francisca Ximénez, 29 January 1614, Taximaroa.

⁷⁷ Juan Vázquez, 22 September 1613, Mexico City.

⁷⁸ Juan Vázquez, 17 March 1614, Mexico City.

⁷⁹ Lic. Miguel de Chaves, 10 June 1614, Mexico City. Lea shows that penalties could be quite lenient in cases involving matrimony. A person who might have uttered a proposition contrary to church doctrine might be punished lightly, for example, if the matter had been newly redefined by a church council. Also arguments could be made for ignorance or extenuating circumstances (e.g., bigamists honestly mistaken about a spouse being alive) that could result in more merciful treatment ( Lea, Henry Charles, A History of the Inquisition of Spain (4 vols.; New York, 1907), IV, 144–146,Google Scholar 322.

⁸⁰ Abjuration of Juan Vázquez, 9 March 1615, Mexico City.

⁸¹ Miguel de Contreras, 9 March 1615, Mexico City.