Indian Migration in Eighteenth-Century Yucatán: The Open Nature of the Closed Corporate Community

Colonial developments within the Yucatan peninsula have received increasing attention. P. Gerhard has provided a superb guide to the changes in administrative structures and a mine of information on encomienda developments. Instead of attempting to utilize the fragmentary data base provided by nominative censuses of the Yucatan, use is made of data pertaining to individuals, which can be gained from the parish registers. The origins of marriage partners in Umán reflect a high and sustained level of exogamy throughout the eighteenth century. While the usual figures for exogamous marriages in colonial Mexico range between 15-20 percent, the evidence from Umán is quite distinctive. From 38.5 percent exogamous in the period 1689-1693, the percentage steadily increases to climax at mid-century and decrease slightly to 50 in the late 1760s. The 1788-1792 origins for Sotuta disintegrate from the three-pronged regional flows to a mass of distinctive sources.