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Image of Folio 24 in Azoyú 1 : el reino de Tlachinollan, depicting cochineal, nopal cactus and indigenous subjects. -
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Page 299 -
Page 59, showing Spanish guards monitoring the festival held by indigenous Indians of Chili for "disorder" -
The image depicts the Patio of the Convent of Huaxtepec. In this garden, the Aztec physicians had experimented with the plants in order to determine their pharmaceutical value and it was here that Dr. Fransisco Hernandez, the first European physician and botanist studied the plants of the New World. -
A facsimile of a pictorial depicting Cortes and his indigenous translator Malinche from "Historia De Las Indias De Nueva-España Y Islas De Tierra Firme: Volume III" -
Map showing the rigid structure of Mexican cities under Spanish authority. The cabildos would have played a major role in the formation and zoning of each city. -
The image illustrates a ceremonial manual title page used for teaching Catholicism in the religious conquest during the establishment of New Spain. Religious conversion was encouraged by Europeans as they pleaded their case exercising their divine right to carry out such tasks. Converting the indigenous population was not the easiest task due to the buildup of resistance toward Europeanization. Adopting Spanish religious practices included regular baptisms, prayer, ceremonial celebrations, and knowing your role in relation to social status. During the reconstruction of Mexico’s infrastructure Spanish settlers ordered indigenous slaves to build churches encouraging Catholicism. This created a strong Catholic presence that sustained efforts to maintain power and structure in the development of New Spain. The indigenous became difficult to convert because they refused to fully commit to European cultural practices by returning home to practice their spirituality. Resistance was key to sustaining a strong indigenous culture despite efforts to convert “savages” into oppressed beings. Interaction between Spanish friars and indigenous peasants was tense and frustrating for both parties due to defiance against assimilation. Tensions rose to new heights as the indigenous plotted ambushes and stole from the Spaniards to gather goods for their families. As Spaniards established laws influenced by the church, the indigenous suffered punishment for not complying to the rules of their superiors. Exercising their divine rights to justify inflicting pain became the new norm for most enslaved peasants which increased tension with their new neighbors. By conquering land, resources, and people, religion became the justification for nearly erasing an entire population of people. Although this became a key resource for the Spanish conquest, their greed and ignorance became the prime motivator for taking over Mexico and its native people. While viewing the conquest from an indigenous perspective the Spanish attempted to manipulate an inferior group of people to take from them and assimilate them into a culture not created for them since their arrival in 1519. The Spanish drove a religious narrative to force the indigenous peoples to comply to their orders and live civilly among each other enslaved and working through harsh labor while attending to their Catholic practices. -
This image illustrates a post conquest society showing a Jesus Christ-like figure centered in the middle of the page as his viewers are scattered around him. While showing religion in an ideal frame, life after the conquest was nothing an easy one for the indigenous. Europeans invaded Mexico and incorporated their culture into a society they didn’t know of before. The arrival of Augustinians began in the 1530s nearly ten years post conquest and settled in Chalma, Malinalco, Mexico State. Much like the Spanish, Augustinians traveled carrying out tasks at hand handed down from the church. As shown in the picture Augustinian friars, peasants, and children gaze at “Santo Christo de Chalma” hanging from a cross in resemblance to Jesus’ second coming in Christianity. Although this shows a hopeful society of “New Spain’ it does not illustrate the reality of indigenous resistance. Mexico struggles to maintain the indigenous population through constant battles of power dominance. Enforcing Europeanization meant destroying the indigenous homeland to shape society into a more advanced country. By doing so, Augustinians sought to reconstruct sacred spaces used for indigenous spiritual practices and restructured them to create more churches. In this case, Chalma was home to a well-known sacred space before it was nearly destroyed during the era of Europeanization. Chalma, Malinalco, Mexico State is a small village where people would gather to practice their spirituality and engage in fellowship with their peers in a ritualistic manner. Deep into the village, a cave is located near the end of the trail to Chalma where indigenous fellowship occurs. In times of distress they sought refuge to hide from the horrors the conquest had made. Once Europeans invaded these places anger brewed within the Native community strengthening resistance towards assimilation. Europeans sought to destroy Mexico’s population through Mexico’s land and resources in preparation to build an empire based on divine right. This end goal would cost the indigenous to nearly loose the most sacred parts of their culture, their spirituality and sacred spaces if they continued to accept their new way of life. The moment Europeans received word about the existing caves and sacred spaces surrounding Mexico’s religious history, tension between the Natives and their oppressors would reach its breaking point. Modernizing Mexico became a series of forceful attacks against the Natives in an attempt to erase their language, spirituality, and cultural practices to establish a society based on unjust religious reasoning. -
The Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco was the epicenter of education and academia in sixteenth-century century Mexico City. The college was founded by the Franciscan order and its primary purpose was to convert young, native Nahua boys to Christianity while teaching them Spanish. It faced many challenges in educating these boys that included insufficient language training that accompany the complex relationship between colonized and colonizer. The Nahua had many variations of the language that it was difficult for the Spanish to learn the language and to teach the boys Spanish. The college also produced some of the first native accounts of the conquest of Mexico City and other native confession manuals and sermons. These native accounts were translated into Spanish by the Nahua students with the supervision of the Catholic friars. While this allowed for native history to be preserved, its intention or original meaning was often distorted because of the inability of Spanish words to accurately capture the spirit of the native narration while in the process of translation. For example, stories of the Tlaxcalan boys who died during the conquest had their stories distorted by the written history produced by the college because the true story reflected poorly on the Spanish and the trauma and spiritual impact could not accurately have translated from Nahua to Spanish. The construction of the college was modeled on Spanish architecture and building techniques. Its placement was informed by the Spanish concept of the plaza which was the grid system that is used in Mexico City and many Spanish cities. Perhaps most intriguing about the intent of the college’s education of the Nahua youth is that it served to benefit the Spaniard’s goals of assimilation and control. The Spanish hoped that by educating these boys in the vein of Spanish culture and tradition through language, religion, and politics that eventually they could be used to impose order on the native population. This process of indoctrination and control was not successful as the boys did not prove to be the effective community leaders the Spanish had anticipated, so ultimately the Spanish filled the leadership and political positions with fellow Spaniards. The primary success of the school was in educating the boys in Spanish, but the texts produced by the college have also provided insight into native culture and the culture of Mexico City post-conquest. The college was lost to the Francsicans when it became too difficult to maintain and was turned over to the crown shortly after the conquest. In 1546, maintenance of the college was turned over its former students. It fell into disrepair after that and now stands in ruins as a memory of the history of post conquest education. Bautista, Juan. Advertencias para los confessores de los naturales. Mexico City: M. Ocharte, 1600. Castano, Victoria Rios. Translation as Conquest. Spain: Vervuert, 2014. Haskett, Robert. “Dying for Conversion: Faith, Obedience, and the Tlaxcalan Boy Martyrs.” Colonial Latin American Review, Vol 17, No. 2 (2008): 185-212. Pollnitz, Aysha. “Old Words and the New World: Liberal Education and the Franciscans in New Spain, 1536—1601.” Transactions of the RHS, Vol. 27 (2017): 123-152. Williams, Jerry M. “Iconography and Religious Education in New Spain.” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, Vol. 15, No. 2 (1991): 305-322.
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It is necessary to take into consideration that many different ethnic groups were present in colonial Mexico. The variety of ethnic groups produced the diverse population that exists now in modern day Mexico. The ethnic groups that were the most apparent in colonial Mexico include Spanish conquistadors, and the natives. It was not long before the racial mixing began in the New World. Cortés himself and his translator named an indigenous woman named Malintzin, who accompanied him on his conquest, produced two mestizo children. Though racial mixing in colonial America began as early as 1519, when Cortes son Martín was born. The term was popularized during the eighteenth century with casta paintings, which provided a visual representation of racial mixture. Casta is the term used to describe mixed race persons in Spanish America. Spanish and Indian couples with their mestizo child were usually portrayed in the casta paintings as sophisticated with a middle class standing. Miguel Cabrera who is considered the master of casta paintings is a mestizo himself . As mentioned before the term Mestizo, refers to offspring derived from Spanish and Indian blood and is the most common racial mixture which produces the majority of modern day Mexico’s population.. The relationship between European conquistadors and natives is somewhat contradictive. Natives were originally intended to be used as a source of labor during the conquest but, with exceptions like Malintzin and Caciques, or an indigenous political boss, which contributed to the success of the European conquest of Mexico. Mestizos culture can be described as “floating uncertainly” between Indigenous and Spanish culture. In some cases skin tone of the child and the social lass of the parental Spanish bloodline are factors that contribute to the sociability of the mestizo offspring.
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This map shows a surrounding area of Tlachinollan, a Mexican City. Mexico City received trade from across Mexico and this map shows some of the areas that would trade with Mexico City. It also once again details the grid system that the Spanish instilled post-conquest. This grid system was adopted in Mexico City as well. -
Petition detailing a dispute between civil and religious authorities over the collection of tributes from the natives. This case was reviewed by members of the Real Audienca as evidenced by the signature and official seal from one of the judges. -
This image is the title page of a book that discusses warnings for Nahua confessors who will convert to Catholicism. The book was printed at the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco that housed the first printing press in Mexico. -
Image of a man with a donkey, caption reading, "Más vale arriar el burro, que cargar la carga." Translation: Better to drive the donkey than to carry the load. -
A collection of images showing the "Exhortation by a Mexican mother to her daughter." -
Pages 75-79 out of Book III of The History of the Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards -
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Frontispiece engraving -
