ABSTRACT
Undoubtedly, the members of the indigenous population — the producers of the material wealth that allowed the functioning of the economy of favor — were the ones who bore the brunt of the abuses of the system of clientage examined in the previous chapter, and it was precisely the existence of this population that gave its peculiarity to the possessions of the Spanish monarchy in the New World and distinguished them from the other dominions of the Crown. How, then, did the viceroys of New Spain approach and relate to the indigenous inhabitants of the viceroyalty? How did they rule them? In order to answer these questions, we first need to look at the ways in which the natives of the New World, in general, and those of New Spain, in particular, were incorporated into the discourse of the Catholic Monarchy and integrated into its "body." Such an analysis must include not only the discourses and practices of the Crown officials in relation to the native population, but also those of the Creole elites, because in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries their members were considered Spaniards, enjoying, at least in theory, the same rights, privileges, and obligations as their peninsular counterparts.
