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000746 Visit since July 30, 2005
| TRIUMPHS and TRAGEDY... A history of the Mexican people (part 39th). |
| By Prof. German Estrada - August 2005 |
...Mendoza served his king ably. With a deft hand on the public pulse, he was both viceroy and a wise governor. He ended the Mixtón War, imposed order and discipline on the rowdy conquistadores, collaborated with the audiencia, and, to the applause of encomenderos, neglected to enforce the New Laws. When he left office in 1550, after almost fifteen years in New Spain, he could look back in the beauty of Mexico City, take pride in its hospitals and schools, and point to its prosperity. Compassion, by the same token, was not his forte, nor was financial integrity, because he acquired a small fortune from dealings of marginal legality. Mendoza was the first official in New Spain to profit from public office but not the last.
During this informative period, the crown, urged on by the friars of the Conquest, started to bring the Indian under its direct control. Spaniards were ordered to stay out of Indian communities, and cattle ranching was barred from their lands. Spaniards had to settle in Spanish towns, lands empty of Indian communities, leaving the Indian free to live alone. Scattered and sparsely populated Indian hamlets were joined together with their parent towns; up to eight towns, along with their attendant hamlets, were consolidated into one large settlement, labeled a congregación, an Indian pueblo. After they were gathered together as congregaciones, they were referred to as repúblicas de indios. The pueblos were given ejidos (communal lands) to cultivate, along with pastures and forests. So long as the Indian tilled his lands, they were his, but he was not free to move about. These repúblicas de indios were entrusted to the care of Spanish corregidores responsible to the crown. This, however, was not always so; in Yucatán, to cite one case, no corregidores were ever appointed, the Maya being left to the supervision of encomenderos and clergy, while in parts of Oaxaca the hostility of Mixtecs and Zapotecs to the congregations barred their establishment.
What the crown wanted was to place its vassals under its wings and, equally important, to profit from their tribute. By eliminating the encomendero, it fattened its coffers. With its demands for tribute, the crown had started off dealing with the Indians in the pattern of the old Aztec monarchs. Like Moctezuma, it demanded tribute but, unlike him, controlled its vassals. The tribute, which the Indian paid originally in goods (corn, squash, and beans, to name three), evolved, as time went by, to approximately two pesos annually per adult. That tax, which is what the tribute signified, was an awesome burden on the Indian. By way of compensation, the crown exempted him from paying the alcabala, a sales tax, and the diezmo, money demanded by the church. The crown, moreover, took steps to protect the property of Indian communities from avaricious Spaniards. Laws enacted between 1523 and 1532 ordered Spaniards to leave communal property; a law passed in 1535 told them, when they disobeyed, to return what they had stolen.
Defenders of Spanish colonialism label these measures social justice. For all that, they were self-seeking. The crown wanted to protect the Indian because he paid tribute; Indians despoiled of their property could not pay it. The defense of communal property and demands for tribute were opposite sides of the same coin. The crown protected the Indian community so as to be able to tax it. The success of Spanish colonization rested on the labor of the Indian as well as on the food he produced. When Spaniards robbed the Indian of his lands, he fled into the hills, depriving the crown of both labor and food. Social justice, the Spanish brand, barred Indians from bearing arms, owning a horse, or wearing European dress. They could acquire communal lands, join urban guilds, or abandon their communities.
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Códice Durán XVI-Punishment of Indians |
In the next issue we'll continue with Chapter III of this fascinating book: A NEW SPAIN
Prof. Germán Estrada
estradanav@yahoo.com
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 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 his website.
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