ABSTRACT
This chapter examines ways in which native cultures from colonial Mexico responded to Spanish land distribution policies through the analysis of a corpus of maps known as land grant maps or mapas de mercedes de tierras. Indigenous artists prepared these maps as evidence for the land grant legal proceedings, which gave them a unique opportunity to express arguments for or against a petition. The Spanish Crown implemented the program for distributing land in all the viceroyalties of the Americas, but only in New Spain did the proceedings call for a painting of the land as part of the evidence. The chapter examines instances of two of the most common scenarios we observe in land grant cases: firstly a map painted when the natives from Texcoco opposed a land request, and secondly a map designed to support negotiations between the natives from Coatepec, the petitioner, and the mayor. The chapter argues that native-made maps did much more than record the disputed territories for the lawsuits; they enabled indigenous communities to translate their own ideas about the contested space into paintings, offered arguments for the defense of these spaces, and in some cases even helped them preserve community lands.
