Conclusion

Summary

As the native-language sources suggest, the history of Xochimilco and the chinampa districts still exhibited a great deal of continuity at the end of the colonial period. The area’s residents were predominantly Nahuas and they retained their demographic superiority by a wide margin over non-Native peoples. The Nahuas still spoke Nahuatl, of course, and they continued to bequeath chinampas, grain bins, and other indigenous items to their heirs in documents set down in their own language. The Nahuas resided in tlaxillacalli, those subunits of the altepetl which, itself, remained intact (as did the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions that relied on it). The Nahuas’ communities were still located in the same, broadly recognizable landscape, one that stretched from the lakes to the sierras. Unlike Lakes Zumpango and Xaltocan to the north of the Basin of Mexico – which had essentially dried up – Lakes Xochimilco and Chalco were still deeply lacustrine environments (devastatingly so, at the frequent times of flooding). Much of the water management program persisted, including the dams and embankments and the hydraulic compartments as well as the ancient causeways of Mexicalzingo and Tlahuac, the latter having been renovated in the late eighteenth century.