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| TRIUMPHS and TRAGEDY... A history of the Mexican people (part 35th). |
| By Prof. German Estrada - May 2005 |
III - A NEW SPAIN
Fighting broke out again when the Spaniards advanced beyond Zacatecas. The War of the Chichimecas, an on-and-off conflict of some
forty years, cost the Spaniards sundry lives and considerable property because the Indians, in the Spanish manner, rode horses and carried firearms.
By the 1580s the Spaniards had rid the north of Chichimeca warriors but not of opposition, because in 1617 the Tepehuanes, natives of the Sierra
of Durango, took up arms against the invaders.
To the south, the saga had a familiar ring. In 1547, the Zapotecsof Titiquipa rebelled, drive, like the warriors of the Mixton War,
by a fervent desire to wipe out all traces of the Conquest. Native priest led the uprising. At about the same time, the Maya made one last effort to cast off Spanish yoke.
Between 1546 and 1547, their war, with headquarters in the towns of Cupul, Cochuah, and Sotuta, ravaged Yucatán from Mérida to Campeche. Like that of the other conflicts,
the goal was to cleanse the Maya world of Christianity. With much cruelty, the Maya, who took orders from their priests, killed Spaniards, put to death horses, cows, pigs,
and other animals noy native to Yucatán, and uprooted plants and grains of European origin.
The pacification of New Spain was accomplished in the face of fierce Indian opposition. As may be expected, the vanquished Indian
compiled his version of it. Akin to the lament of the Aztecs, the book Chilam Balam de Chumayel, of the Maya, tells of strangers called dzules, men of
fair skin who destroyed "what had been good before." Until the Spaniards arrived,
| There was no sin. |
| No illness afflicted man, |
| Aches did not hurt but the bones, |
| Fevers were unknown, |
| There was no smallpox. |
| All that ended with the dzules |
| They taught fear.. |
The Maya and, undoubtedly Indians everywhere in New Spain, labeled the Spaniards hypocrites, because what they preached stood at odds with what they practiced.
Encomiendas, grants of Indian labor to Spaniards, had Old World origins. In medieval Castilla, though, they were land grants on a
temporary basis to the military, usually in territory taken from the Moors. The New World Encomiendas, which dated from the days of the Spaniards on
Hispaniola (Española), entrusted Indians but not lands to the Spaniards. Himself the possessor of an encomienda, Cortés was the first to grant them,
mostly as a reward to his freebooting soldiers, who, penniless despite risking their lives, wanted compensation. The beneficiaries of encomiendas
became encomenderos, some of whom, by fiat of Cortés, received as many as 20,000 Indians. The crown, incidentally, rewarded Cortés with an encomienda
of 23,000 Indians, which he increased covertly to 50,000. Pedro de Alvarado, who staked out Xochimilco for himself, enjoyed an encomienda of 20,2000
Indians. The smallest encomienda, that of Tequistlán, had 450 Indians. In 1528, encomiendas were limited to 300 Indians. With the fall of Tenochtitlan,
Cortés also acquired the Aztec rolls of tribute-paying towns, which numbered nearly four hundred. Cortés distributed these towns among his soldiers,
granting the best and largest of them to his lieutenants.
Charles I, however, had misgivings about the encomienda, not wanting to unlock the gates to a hereditary feudal aristocracy in
New Spain. He had no wish to repeat the experience of Castilla and Andalucía, where a nobility ready to defy the crown sank roots with the grants of
land and towns made for service in the wars against the Moslems. The New World encomienda was therefore a compromise, a concession by the crown to
the men who conquered a New World for Spain. The conquerors got Indian towns, and the right to exploit their labor force, but not their lands.
The encomenderos, who profited from the labor of their vassals, were, in theory, not "lords of the land."
Chichén Itzá observatory 900-1250 ac In the next issue we'll continue with Chapter III of this fascinating book: A NEW SPAIN
** Source: From the book Triumphs and Tragedy, a History of the Mexican People by his author Ramon Eduardo Ruiz, and with his authorization. (. (W.W. Norton & Company. New York-London).
Prof. Germán Estrada
estradanav@yahoo.com
Prof. Germán
Estrada is the author of the best selling book,
"México
Mágico: Everything You Wanted To Know
About... But Nobody Told You..." available in Puerto
Vallarta at The Net House, Mail Boxes, Etc., Books,
Books as well as directly from the author by internet.
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