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Witnesses, Spatial Practices, And a Land Dispute in Colonial Oaxaca*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Yanna Yannakakis
Yanna Yannakakis*
Affiliation:
Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana
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Extract

At approximatety eight o'clock in the morning on the 22nd of June, 1719, Don Gaspar Agüero de los Reyes y San Pelayo, the alcalde mayor (Spanish magistrate) of the district of Villa Alta, Oaxaca, prepared to depart on horseback from the town square of the Zapotec pueblo of San Juan Juquila toward four disputed parcels of land. Standing with him in the square were the cabildo officers of San Juan Juquila and San Juan Tanetze, who had been engaged in a legal battle over the land for four years. Their lawyers stood with them. Juan Tirado, a district interpreter, and court witnesses (in lieu of an official notary) translated and notarized the proceedings. From his perch on the back of his horse, the alcalde mayor read the legal decision in the dispute, which the interpreter translated for the benefit of the Zapotec officials. The auxiliary judge, who rendered the decision in the case from the distance and comfort of the diocesan seat of Antequera, had ordered that the land in question should be divided equally between the two pueblos. The lawyer for the cabildo of Tanetze voiced his official protest and vowed to appeal the case to the Real Audiencia. The alcalde mayor registered the protest. Then, he addressed another group of men who had been waiting in the wings: Juan de Yllescas, Andrés Ramos, Juan Baptista, Pedro Hernandes, and Nicolas Santiago, all natives of the Zapotec pueblo of San Miguel Talea, and all of whom had testified in an earlier probanza on behalf of the pueblo of Juquila. Through his interpreter, the magistrate swore them in as witnesses and ordered them to guide the group to the disputed territory, identify the parcels of land and their borders, and determine where they should be divided. From this point on, the Zapotec witnesses took the lead and proceeded toward the disputed territory along the Camino Real, with their “faces pointing south.” In this manner, the legal ritual of boundary marking (amojonamiento) began.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , October 2008 , pp. 161 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2008

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, Javier Villa-Flores, and the anonymous reviewers for The Americas, all of whose commentary helped me immensely.

References

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2 See footnote 5.

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14 María de los Angeles Romero Frizzi has also written about this case in the context of a broader analysis of the interaction between Sierra Zapotee and Spanish concepts and forms of power. See Frizzi, Romero, “El Poder de la Ley: La Construcción del Poder Colonial en una Región Indígena,” Negotiation within Domination: Colonial New Spain’s Indian Pueblos Confront the Spanish State, ed. Ruiz Medrano, Ethelia and Kellogg, Susan forthcoming (University of Colorado Press).Google Scholar

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23 AGN Tierras vol.335, exp.5, f.l–17v. “Memoria de Iuquila.”

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25 AGN Tierras vol.335, exp.5, f.20–20v. “Petición.” 23 octubre, 1715.

26 AGN Tierras vol.335, exp.5, f.20–20v. “Petición.” 23 octubre, 1715.

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30 Amith, , The Möbius Strip, pp. 70–115.Google Scholar For a discussion of the dynamic relationship between Iberian and Mexica notions of land tenure, see Kellogg, Susan, Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture, 1500–1700 (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), pp. 121–159.Google Scholar

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38 Oudijk, Michel R., “Espacio y escritura. El Lienzo de Tabáa I,” Escritura Zapoteca: 2500 años de historia,Google Scholar coord. María de los Angeles Romero Frizzi (México: CIESAS e INAH, 2003), pp. 341–391.

39 Romero Frizzi and Vásquez, “Memoria y escritura: La memoria de Juquila.”

40 Romero Frizzi and Vásquez, “Memoria y escritura: La memoria de Juquila.”

41 AGN Tierras vol.335 exp.5: f.59–59v. “Certifico la petición de los indios del pueblo de Yechegooa.” 17 octubre, 1716.

42 Tavárez, , “Invisible Wars,” pp. 120–121.Google Scholar Tavárez argues that from 1665–1736 the alcaldes mayores and tenientes de alcalde of Villa Alta presided over at least a dozen idolatry trials.

43 AGI México 882, November 1704-December 1704: 1544 pages worth of testimony of the cabildos of the pueblos of the district of Villa Alta regarding the “idolatrous” practices of their pueblos, including the locations of their idolatrous rites.

44 Radding, Cynthia, Landscapes of Power and Identity: Comparative Histories in the Sonaran Desert and the Forests of Amazonia from Colony to Republic (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), p. 197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 The documents related to the investigation of the Cajonos Rebellion and the criminal trial of the officials of San Francisco Cajonos and surrounding pueblos are compiled in AVA (Archivo del Juzgado de Villa Alta, ubicado en el Archivo del Poder Judicial de Oaxaca) Criminal (uncatalogued*) (1701), “Contra los naturales del pueblo de San Francisco Cajonos por sedición, sublevación e idolatría.”

In addition, Eulogio Gillow, who served as Bishop of Oaxaca and Archbishop of Antequera (appointed by the Pope in 1891) wrote an account of the rebellion and transcribed a number of the historical documents related to it. See Eulogio Gillow, Apuntes históricos sobre la idolatría e introducción del cristianismo en Oaxaca [1889] (México: Ediciones Toledo, 1990). For documents related to the extirpation campaign and the parish reforms that followed the rebellion, designed and implemented by Bishop of Oaxaca Fray Angel Maldonado, see the following legajos in the AGI: AGI México 879 (investigation of Dominican administration of indigenous pueblos in Oaxaca), AGI México 880 (legal conflict between Maldonado and the Dominican order regarding Maldonado’s plan to overhaul Dominican administration by dividing Dominican doctrinas and appointing secular clergy), AGI México 881 (testimony concerning Dominican administration of the doctrinas of Villa Alta, and plans to divide the doctrinas and put them under secular administration), AGI México 882 (more documentation on reform of church administration in Villa Alta and the testimony of the cabildos of the district of Villa Alta regarding the idolatrous practices of their pueblos. This legajo also includes the ritual calendars confiscated from the pueblos of Villa Alta by Maldonado’s chief extirpator Licenciado Joseph de Aragón y Alcántara.). Much of the information in this documentation has been synthesized by Chance, Alcina Franch, and Tavárez. See Chance, , Conquest, pp. 151–175;Google Scholar Alcina Franch, Calendario; Tavárez, “Invisible Wars.”

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52 AGN Tierras vol.335 exp.5: f.72 “Joseph de Orozco por el pueblo de Juquila.”

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67 For information about the Indian conquerors of the Barrio of Analco, see Chance, John K., Conquest of the Sierra: Spaniards and Indians in Colonial Oaxaca (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989);Google Scholar Yannakakis, Yanna, “The ‘indios conquistadores’ of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca: From Indian Con-querors to Local Indians,” Indian Conquistadors: Indigenous Allies in the Conquest of Mesoamerica, ed. Matthew, Laura and Oudijk, Michel (University of Oklahoma Press, 2007).Google Scholar

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70 AGN Tierras vol.335, exp.5: fs. 144–144v. “Testimonio de Sebastian Gonzales.” 20 junio, 1718.

71 Yannakakis, “The ‘indios conquistadores.’”

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77 AGN Tierras vol.335, exp.5: f.l63v.–164v. “Don Nicolas Pastor de Aragon, clérigo presbitero del obispado de Oaxaca, abogado de la Real Audiencia de esta Nueba España.”

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79 AGN Tierras vol.335, exp.5: fs.172v.–176. “Diligencia de division de tierras hamparo y amox-oneamiento.” 2 junio, 1719.

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