• Hacienda de Santa Barbara (Tlaxcala, Mexico) records, 1553-1802.

Format:
  • Manuscript
Date:
  • 1553-1802.
Subject:
  • Land tenure—Mexico—Tlaxcala (State).
  • Nahuatl language—Texts
  • Hacienda de Santa Barbara (Tlaxcala, Mexico)
  • Mexico—History—Spanish colony, 1540-1810—Sources
  • Tlaxcala (Mexico : State)—History—Sources
  • Indigenous Studies
View in catalog:
Call number:
  • C0940 (Princeton Mesoamerican Manuscripts, no. 19)
Extent:
  • 1.25 linear ft. (1 half-size archival box, 1 large flat archival box)
Source acquisition:
  • Purchase, 2008. AM 2008-110.
Created:
  • 1553-01-01T00:00:00Z/1802-12-31T23:59:59Z
Abstract:
  • Consists of a collection of approximately 200 notarial and other documents, in Spanish and Nahuatl, regarding the formation of the Hacienda de Santa Barbara (Tlaxcala, Mexico) estate. Among the early written documents is a 16th-century "map" of land that an Indian proposes to sell. This collection documents the Spanish exploitation of the laws and the native population and the resistance that the Tlaxcalans mustered agains the dominant social group. Because the Tlaxcalans had been the major ally of Cortes, they received special treatment under the law in the post-Conquest era, including the declaration of the entire province as off-limits to Spanish settlement. The ban was not effective as these documents attest, but they also demonstrate the active role that the Tlaxcalan indigenous government (cabildo) played in the 16th and 17th centuries in assuring that all sales of Indian lands were "by the book": the seller doing so in Nahuatl before an Indian or mestizo notary, proper town crying of the proposed sale, etc. The documents were originally housed in a contemporary limp sheep leather pouch, which has been kept with the collection.
Identifier:
  • ark:/88435/f1881v24q
Location:
  • Special Collections C0940 (Princeton Mesoamerican Manuscripts, no. 19)
Exhibit Tags:
Genre:
  • Manuscript maps 16th century.
  • Manuscripts, Nahuatl Mexico.
  • Manuscripts, Spanish Mexico.