ABSTRACT

Among the peoples who lived in provincial Spanish America (today’s Mexico) in postconquest times were the Nahua, who, between 1550 and about 1800, produced numerous documents in their own language (Nahuatl) that were written in the European script. The Nahuatl sources show how the indigenous structures and patterns of Nahua culture survived the conquest on a larger scale and for a far longer period of time than if judged on the basis of Spaniards’ reports alone. For example, although the Spanish “claimed” and “possessed” the land and determined its boundaries, land was granted to others, often reverting to the indigenous inhabitants. The excerpt from the document below describes a 1583 land grant in the town of San Miguel de Tocuillán, Mexico. Its recipient and the family spokeswoman is Ana:

Ana spoke and said to her older brother Juan Miguel, “My dear older brother, let us be under your roof for a few days – only a few days. I don’t have many children, only my little Juan, the only child. There are only three of us with your brother-in-law Juan.”