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Households in Late Prehispanic and Early Colonial Mexico City: Their Structure and Its Implications for the Study of Historical Demography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Susan Kellogg
Susan Kellogg*
Affiliation:
Houston, Texas
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Extract

Historical demography—the study of the growth, decline, and movement of past populations—has played a critical role in efforts to reconstruct the historical experiences of native peoples during New World colonization. The subject of historical demography has been of interest because it is closely connected to a wide range of still significant issues, including the nature of prehispanic Indian societies, the brutality of conquest, and the degree of disruption wrought by colonization. Nonetheless, scholars have yet to calculate a measurement of the precolonial New World population that meets with general acceptance.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , April 1988 , pp. 483 - 494
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1988

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References

1 Greven, Philip J. Jr., “Historical Demography and Colonial America,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 24 (1967),438–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Eversley, D.E.C., “Exploitation of Anglican Parish Registers by Aggregate Analysis,” in Wrigley, E.A., ed., An Introduction to English Historical Demography (New York, 1966), pp. 44–95.Google Scholar

3 Wrigley, E.A., “Family Reconstitution,” in Ibid., pp. 95–159.Google Scholar

4 Vinovskis, Maris, “Recent Trends in American Historical Demography: Some Methodological and Conceptual Considerations,” Annual Reviews in Sociology, 4 (1978), 603–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Tilly, Charles, Historical Studies of Changing Fertility, (Princeton, 1978), p. 16.Google Scholar

6 The works primarily consulted for this essay include Cook, S.F. and Simpson, Lesley, The Population of Central Mexico in the Sixteenth Century, Ibero-Americana #31, (Berkeley, 1948)Google Scholar; Cook, S.F. and Borah, Woodrow, The Indian Population of Central Mexico: 1531–1610, Ibero-Americana #44, (Berkeley, 1960)Google Scholar; Borah, Woodrow and Cook, S.F., The Population of Central Mexico in 1548, IberoAmericana #43, (Berkeley, 1960)Google Scholar; Borah, Woodrow and Cook, S.F., The Aboriginal Population of Central Mexico on the Eve of Spanish Conquest, Ibero-Americana #45, (Berkeley, 1963)Google Scholar; Cook, S.F. and Borah, Woodrow, Essays in Population History, 3 vols., (Berkeley, 1971).Google Scholar

7 I am presenting one particular critique of the general approach of the Simpson-Cook-Borah studies but there are other more specific and detailed critiques such as Sanders, William, “The Population of the Central Mexican Symbiotic Region. The Basin of Mexico and the Teotihuacan Valley in the Sixteenth Century,” in The Teotihuacan Valley Project Final Report, Vol. 1, Occasional Papers in Anthropology #3, (University Park, Pennsylvania, 1970)Google Scholar; Denevan, W., ed., The Native Population of the Americas in 1492 (Madison, 1976), pp. 85–150 Google Scholar; Zambardino, R.A., “Mexico’s Population in the Sixteenth Century: Demographic Anomaly or Mathematical Illusion,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 11 (1980–81, 1–28)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cook, Noble David, Demographic Collapse: Indian Peru, 1520–1620 (Cambridge, 1981).Google Scholar

8 Sanders, , “The Population of the Central Mexican Symbiotic Region,” p. 94.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., pp. 101–12.

10 Ibid., pp. 87–129; Zambardino, “Mexico’s Population in the Sixteenth Century,” for more detailed discussion of this point.

11 Sanders, , “The Population of the Central Mexican Symbiotic Region,” p. 108.Google Scholar

12 Cook, and Borah, , Essays in Population History, 1: 124.Google Scholar

13 Sanders, , “The Population of the Central Mexican Symbiotic Region,” p. 108.Google Scholar

14 Borah, and Cook, , The Population of Central Mexico in 1548, p. 102.Google Scholar

15 See Carrasco, Pedro, “Family Structure of Sixteenth Century Tepoztlan,” in Manners, R., ed., Process and Pattern in Culture (Chicago, 1964), pp. 185–210 Google Scholar; “The Joint Family in Ancient Mexico: The Case of Molotla,” in Nutini, H. et al., eds., Essays in Mexican Kinship (Pittsburgh, 1976), pp. 45–64 Google Scholar; Offner, Jerome, “Household Organization in the Texcocan Heartland: The Evidence in the Codex Vergara,” in Harvey, H.R. and Prem, Hanns, eds., Explorations in Ethnohistory: Indians of Central Mexico in the 16th Century (Albuquerque, 1984), pp. 127–46.Google Scholar

16 See also Calnek, Edward, “Settlement Pattern and Chinampa Agriculture at Tenochtitlan,” American Antiquity, 37 (1972), 104–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “The Sahagun Texts as a Source of Sociological Information,” in Edmonson, M., ed., Sixteenth Century Mexico: The Work of Sahagún (Albuquerque, 1974), pp. 189–204 Google Scholar; and the work of Carrasco cited above.

17 Carrasco, , “Family Structure of Sixteenth Century Tepoztlan”; Offner, Jerome, Law and Politics in Aztec Texcoco (Cambridge, 1983)Google Scholar; Cook and Borah, Essays in Population History.

18 Calnek, Edward, “Kinship, Settlement Pattern, and Domestic Groups in Tenochtitlan,” unpublished manuscript, p. 10.Google Scholar The terms “neolocal,” “uxorilocal,” and “virilocal” refer to postmarital residence patterns where couples set up a new household, live with the wife’s family, or live with the husband’s family, respectively.

19 See, for example, Laslett, Peter, “Introduction: The History of the Family,” in Laslett, P., ed., Household and Family in Past Time (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 1–90 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Family Life and Illicit Love in Earlier Generations: Essays in Historical Sociology (Cambridge, 1977); Berkner, Lutz, “The Stem Family and the Developmental Cycle of the Peasant Household: An Eighteenth Century Austrian Example,” American Historical Review, 77 (1972), 398–418 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berkner, , “The Use and Misuse of Census Data for the Historical Analysis of Family Structure,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 5 (1975), 601–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goubert, Pierre, “Family and Province: A Contribution to the Knowledge of Family Structures in Early Modern France,” Journal of Family History, 2 (1977), 179–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stone, Lawrence, The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (New York, 1977).Google Scholar

20 See AGN Tierras, Legajo 54, Expediente 2; Legajo. 20, Exp. 1–3.

21 See AGN Tierras, Legajo 22, Exp. 1-5; Legajo 29. Exp. 5.

22 Cook, and Borah, , The Indian Population of Central Mexico, 1531–1610, p. 63 Google Scholar; Cook, and Simpson, , The Population of Central Mexico in the Sixteenth Century, p. 53.Google Scholar

23 Calnek, Edward, “Conjunto Urbano y Modelo Residenciál en Tenochtitlan,” Borah, W. et al., Ensayos Sobre el Desarollo Urbano de México (México, 1974), pp. 11–65 Google Scholar; Sanders, W., The Teoti-huancan Valley Project, Final Report. Vol. 1, pp. 385–487.Google Scholar

24 de Gómara, Francisco Lopez, História de la Conquista de México, 2 Volumes, (México, 1943), 1, 161, 163.Google Scholar

25 Sanders, , The Teotihuacan Valley Project, Final Report, p. 447.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., p. 449. But note that Sanders, , “The Population of the Central Mexican Symbiotic Region, the Basin of Mexico and the Teotihuacan Valley in the Sixteenth Century,” pp. 126–27,Google Scholar Denevan, W., ed., The Native Population of the Americas in 1492 (Madison, 1976)Google Scholar seems to have since accepted the higher figures.

27 Calnek, , “Conjunto Urbano y Modélo Residenciál en Tenochtitlan,” p. 54.Google Scholar

28 Kellogg, Susan, Social Organization in Early Colonial Tenochtitlan: An Ethnohistorical Study (Ph.D. dissertation, Anthropology Department, University of Rochester, 1980), pp.90–92,Google Scholar for a fuller discussion of the historiography of this issue. Also see Dobyns, Harry, Native American Historical Demography: A Critical Bibliography (Bloomington, 1976), pp. 12–13 Google Scholar for a useful discussion of why there are two basic sets of population estimates, one low and one high.

29 See also Calnek, “Settlement Pattern and Chinampa Agriculture at Tenochtitlan.”

30 See Kellogg, Social Organization in Early Colonial Tenochtitlan; “Aztec Women in Early Colonial Courts: Structure and Strategy in a Legal Context” in Spores, R. and Hassig, R., eds., Five Centuries of Law and Politics in Central Mexico (Nashville, 1984), pp. 25–38 Google Scholar; and “Aztec Inheritance: Colonial Patterns, Prehispanic Influences”, Ethnohistory, 33(3): 313–330 for further discussion of these issues.