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Indigenous Communities and Water Rights in Colonial Puebla: Patterns of Resistance1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Sonya Lipsett-Rivera
Sonya Lipsett-Rivera*
Affiliation:
Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
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Extract

Agriculture was at the center of the Poblano indigenous communal economy, and therefore, successful harvests were the motor of the community's survival. The struggle to retain land by Indians was a fundamental part of their quest to retain a viable community, but for some, an equally important task was to maintain control of water rights. The central place of sufficient water resources for the well-being of the collectivity was often expressed when village elders complained that its loss led to migration of substantial numbers to more vital economic regions. As such, the defense of water resources had a more important place in the survival mechanisms of indigenous groups than usually accorded it by scholars.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , April 1992 , pp. 463 - 483
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1992

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Footnotes

1

Research for this paper was made possible by generous grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Faculty Research Program of the State University of New York, and the Mesoamerican Ecology Institute. I would like to thank Richard Greenleaf, Donald Stevens, Sergio Rivera Ayala, Donald R. Wright, and the anonymous reviewers of this journal for their comments as well as Liz Kopp for the map and Lester Siapma for the illustrations.

References

2 Archivo General de la Nación, Ramo de Indios, volume 41, expediente 224, 1717 [hereafter AGN, Indios, vol. 41, exp. 224, 1717]; Biblioteca Nacional- Tenencia de la Tierra en Puebla, caja 5, 1790 [hereafter BN-TTP caja 5, 1790]; AGN, Tierras, vol. 2691, exp. 9, 1799; Archivo Judicial de Puebla, 1732, no. 8 [hereafter AJP, 1732, no. 8]; AGN, Tierras, vol. 3512, exp. 2, fols. 4–8, 1775. Meyer, Michael, Water in the Hispanic Southwest, A Social and Legal History, 1550–1850 (Tucson, 1984) pp. 48–49,Google Scholar also describes similar problems for the Indians of the Mexican North. The migrations of Poblano Indian in the eighteenth century are commented upon by Guy Thomson, “The Cotton Textile Industry in Puebla During the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries,” in Jacobsen, Nils and Puhle, Hans-Jurgen, eds., The Economies of Mexico and Peru During the Late Colonial Period, 1760–1810 (Berlin, 1986), pp. 175–176;Google Scholar Mateos Cuenya, Miguel Angel, “Evolución demográfica de una parroquia de la Puebla de los Angeles,” Historia Mexicana, 37:3 (Jan.-Mar. 1987), 443–464.Google Scholar

3 A few scholars have looked at the defense of indigenous lands and water in an integral manner. See Martin, Cheryl, Rural Society in Colonial Morelos (Albuquerque, 1985);Google Scholar Ramírez, Susan, Provincial Patriarchs. Land Tenure and the Economics of Power in Colonial Peru (Albuquerque, 1986).Google Scholar

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7 For example, in the southeast of Puebla (Tepeji, Huatlautlauca, Acatlán, and Tehuacán) the popu-lation rose from a low point of 4,652 in 1650 to 11,613 in 1735 and 15,411 in 1800. The northern region of Huejotzingo, Cholula, Atlixco, Tochimilco, Izúcar, Cuautinchan, Tecali and Tepeaca rose from 17,736 in 1650 to 38,218 in 1735 and dropped to 35,098 in 1800. Völlmer, Gunter, “La evolución cuantitativa de la población indígena de la región de Puebla (1570–1810),” Historia Mexicana, 23:1 (July-Sept. 1973), 43–51.Google Scholar

8 Florescano, Enrique, Desripciones económicas generales de Nueva España, 1784–1817 (Mexico City, 1973), p. 148.Google Scholar

9 AGN, Tierras, vol. 1436, exp. 1, 1715; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1869, exp. 7, 1802; AGN, Tierras, vol. 3681, exp. 3, 1754; AGN, Mercedes, vol. 65, fols. 14v–15,1698; AGN, Tierras, vol. 40, exp. 10,1716; AGN, Tierras, vol. 22, 2a parte, exp. 2, 1705; AGN, Indios, vol. 38, exp. 51bis, 1712; AGN, Tierras, vol. 273, exp. 4, 1709–11.

10 Olivera, Mercedes, Pillis y macehuales, las formaciones sociales y los modos de producción de Tecali del siglo XII al XVI (Mexico City, 1978), pp. 205–206.Google Scholar

11 Lipsett-Rivera, Sonya, “Puebla’s Eighteenth-Century Agrarian Decline: A New Perspective,” His-panic American Historical Review, 70:3 (1990), 463–481.Google Scholar

12 Garavaglia, Juan Carlos and Grosso, Juan Carlos, “La región de Puebla/Tlaxcala y la economia novohispana (1670–1821),” Historia Mexicana, 35:4 (Apr.-June 1986);Google Scholar and Morin, Claude, Michoacán en la Nueva España del siglo XVIII: Crecimiento y desigualdad en una economía colonial (Mexico City, 1979), p. 152.Google Scholar

13 Taylor, William, Drinking, Homicide and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (Stanford, 1979), p. 114.Google Scholar

14 Taylor, p. 128.

15 Scott, James, Weapons of the Weak, Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, 1985), pp. 29–32.Google Scholar

16 Meier, August and Rudwick, Elliot, From Plantation to Ghetto (3rd ed.; New York, 1976), pp. 80–86.Google Scholar

17 Genovese, Eugene, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slave Made (New York, 1974), p. 598.Google Scholar

18 Don José Saénz de Escobar, an agrimensor and lawyer of the period, comments upon the rise in price of wheat during this period (AGN, Tierras, vol. 3706, exp. 1, fol. 3-3v, 1749); also Young, Eric Van, Hacienda and Market in Eighteenth Century Mexico, The Rural Economy of the Guadalajara Region, 1675–1820 (Berkeley, 1981);Google Scholar the expansion of the market for sugar is described by several authors: Sandóval, Fernando, La industria de azúcar en Nueva España (Mexico City, 1957);Google Scholar Wobeser, Gisela Von, San Carlos Borromeo, Endeudamiento de una hacienda colonial, 1608–1729 (Mexico City, 1980).Google Scholar

19 Michael Meyer, pp. 51,60, also shows a link between conflicts over water rights and the availability or lack of irrigation, although since he studied arid lands, the cycle involved drought and relative plenty instead of the seasonal pattern of dry and wet periods prevalent in central Puebla.

20 Meyer, p. 58; Taylor, , Landlord and Peasant in Colonial Oaxaca (Stanford, 1972), p. 92;Google Scholar and Ramirez, p. 198, also mention this phenomenon.

21 García Rivas, Licenciado Heriberto, Guía Turística Ciudad de Puebla y Estado de Puebla (México: Guía Roji, 1982), p. 64;Google Scholar Florescano, , Descripciones económicas generales …, p. 17;Google Scholar Florescano, , Descripciones Económicas Regionales de la Nueva España (Mexico City, 1976), p. 168.Google Scholar

22 Ibid.; AGN, Historia, vol. 578B, fol. 3v, 1770.

23 AGN, Historia, vol. 578B, fol. 3–24, 1770.

24 AGN, Tierras, vol. 635, exp. 1, 1742; AGN, Tierras vol. 1864, exp. 7, 1802. These walled-in gardens still exist in Tochimilco today.

25 AGN, Mercedes, vol. 65, fols. 14v–15, 1698. A repartimiento de aguas was formulated after a comprehensive study of a region's water supply and various claims made upon this supply by the local farmers. It allocated irrigation to each user and specified where the barriers or divisions were to be located in order to divert the water into fields in an equitable manner.

26 AGN, Mercedes, vol. 65, fols. 14v-15; AGN, Tierras, vol. 188, exp. 3, 1700; AGN, Tierras, vol. 635, exp. 1, 1742; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1342, exp. 5, 1802; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1869, exp. 7, 1802.

27 Florescano, , Descripciones económicas regionales …, pp. 172–173.Google Scholar

28 AGN, Indios, vol. 47, exp. 75, fol. 136; exp. 140, 1723.

29 Ibid., AGN, Tierras, vol. 888, exp. 4, 1763; Archivo General de Indios, Ramo de Indiferente, vol. 1659, 1753; AGN, Mercedes, vol. 67, fols. 118-118v, 1708; AGN Mercedes, vol. 77, fols. 39–39v, 1745.

30 AGN, Indios, vol. 47, exp. 140, 1723.

31 Konrad, Herman, A Jesuit Estate in Colonial Mexico: Santa Lucía, 1576–1767 (Stanford, 1980), pp. 110, 163,Google Scholar used the same theoretical construct to categorize peasant resistance to the estate over land retention. The anthropologist Rasnake, Roger Neil, Domination and Cultural Resistance; Authority and Power among an Andean People (Durham, 1988), p. 7,CrossRefGoogle Scholar also refers to “patterns of resistance, passive and active.”

32 Taylor, , Drinking, …, p. 138,Google ScholarPubMed states that “The leisurely legal process was not, however, a satisfactory means of coping with this kind of real emergency.” Ramírez, p. 248, quotes from a colonial era Peruvian document: “The damage is irreparable and the appeals difficult, because while they [indigenous groups] address themselves to higher courts of law, the crops die.”

33 AGN, Tierras, vol. 1300, exp. 8, 1798.

34 Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geográfica e Informatica, Sinstesis geográfica, nomenclator, y anexo cartográfico del estado de Puebla (Mexico City, 1987), p. 15.

35 Palacios, Enrique Juan, Puebla, su territorio y sus habitantes (2nd ed.; Puebla, 1982), pp. 16, 198–199.Google Scholar

36 Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geográfica e Informatica, Sintesis Geográfica …, p. 15.

37 In Santa Cruz Tlacotepeque (Jur. Tepeaca), the governor Don Pablo Roxas accused a former official Antonio Joseph of not only fraudulently selling the communal irrigation rights while in office but of tampering with the aqueducts at irrigation time. AGN, Indios, vol. 64, exp. 118, fols. 176v–178v, 1773. Other accusations are found in AGN, Indios, vol. 38, exp. 5Ibis, 1712 and AGN, Tierras, vol. 1449, exp. 12, 1725–1726. The cacicas of Tecali also opposed a composition of water for the village of Santa Isabel, BN-TTP, caja 36, 1742, and negotiated with the convent of Santo Domingo to protect their waters, AGN Indios, vol. 47, exp. 24, 1723.

38 I reviewed this criminal series in the AGN and found very few instances of rebellions in Puebla in general and even fewer examples dealing with water rights. For this reason the information presented herein is less rich and dense than Taylor’s study which depended upon the manuscripts in Criminal.

39 Martin, pp. 93, 109–110, 111, reports similar instances of sabotage.

40 AGN, Tierras, vol. 188, exp. 3, 1700; AGN, Tierras, vol. 2691, exp. 9, 1799.

41 Martin, p. 113.

42 AGN, Tierras, vol. 901, exp. 1, 1679–1780; AGN, Indios, vol. 38, exp. 37, 1717. Tutino, John, “Agrarian Social Change and Peasant Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century Mexico: The Example of Chalco” in Katz, Friedrick, ed., (Princeton, 1988), p. 111,Google Scholar also reports a similar incident in nineteenth-century Chalco.

43 AGN, Tierras, vol. 1458, exp. 5, 1690; AGN, Indios, vol. 38, exp. 37, 1717.

44 AGN, Tierras, vol. 3043, exp. 4, fol. 39v-40v, 17 60; AGN, Indios, vol. 40, exp. 10, fols. 9–10, 1716; AJP, 1732, no. 8; AGN, Tierras, vol. 485, 2a parte, exp. 1, 1729; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1300, exp. 8, 1798; AGN, Tierras, vol. 2672, 2a parte, exp. 31, 1790.

45 AGN, Indios, vol. 40, exp. 10, fols. 9–10, 1716.

46 AJP, 1732, no. 8, fol. 7–7v.

47 AGN, Tierras, vol. 1300, exp. 8, 1798.

48 AGN, Tierras, vol. 2672, segunda parte, exp. 3, 1790; AJP, 1732, no. 8; AGN, Indios, vol. 40, exp. 10, 1716; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1300, exp. 8, 1798.

49 AGN, Tierras, vol. 2672, segunda parte, exp. 31, fol. 512v and passim, 1790; The Indians of Izúcar were involved in a major rebellion in 1781 and three other separate insurrections. See AGN, Reales Cédulas Originales, vol. 123, exp. 58, fol. 1, 1782; AGN, Reales Cédulas Originales, vol. 127, exp. 64, fols. 1–lv, 1784; AGN, Correspondencia de Virreyes, Primera series, vol. 129, fols. 279–289, 1781; AGN, Correspondencia de Virreyes, vol. 128, fols. 251–255v, 1781; Taylor, William also mentions the rebellion of 1781 in Drinking …, p. 120.Google ScholarPubMed Martin, p. 110, documents an instance when, in 1797, a rumor that the Indians of Oaxtepec were about to rebel forced the owners of the Hacienda Pantitlán to reach compromise with them regarding irrigation.

50 AGN, Tierras, vol. 3043, exp. 4, 1760. Tutino, p. 115, describes a similar incident.

51 Taylor, , Drinking …, pp. 116, 137–138.Google ScholarPubMed

52 Gerhard, Peter, Geografía histórica de la Nueva España 1519–1821 (Mexico City, 1986), pp. 164–167.Google Scholar

53 AGN, Tierras, vol. 485, segunda parte, exp. 1, 1729.

54 AGN, Tierras, vol. 485, 2a parte, exp. 1, fol. 112, testimony of Augustín Gregorio de Contreras, Indio del barrio de San Pedro and participant in the tumulto.

55 Declaration of Joseph Gregorio, indio del barrio de San Pedro. Ibid., fol. 122v.

56 AGN, Tierras, vol. 485, segunda parte, exp. 1, 1729.

57 For a complete discussion of this topic, see Lipsett, Sonya, “Water and Social Conflict in Colonial Mexico; Puebla, 1680–1810” (Ph.D. diss., Tulane University, 1988), chap. 3.Google Scholar

58 For information on the Juzgado, see Borah, Woodrow, Justice by Insurance, The General Indian Court of Colonial Mexico and the Legal Aides of the Half-Real (Berkeley, 1983).Google Scholar

59 AGN, Indios, vol. 64, exp. 118, 1773; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1449, exp. 12, 1725–26; AGN, Indios, vol. 38, exp. 51bis, 1712; AGN, Indios, vol. 41, exp. 224, 1717; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1363, exp. 5, 1805; AGN, Tierras, vol. 57, exp. 3, 1795;AGN, Indios, vol. 27, exp. 67, 1681; AGN, Tierras, vol. 2078, exp. 6, 1797; AGN, Tierras, vol. 151, exp. 6, 1691;AGN, Tierras, vol. 635, exp. 1, 1742; AGN, Tierras, vol. 952, exp. 2, fol. 13, 1769; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1058, exp. 2, 1780; AGN, Indios, vol. 30, exp. 188, 1688; AGN, Tierras, vol. 3266, exp. 1, 1755; AGN, Tierras, vol. 3043, exp. 4, 1760.

60 AGN, Tierras, vol. 13, exp. 2, 1771.

61 AGN, Tierras, vol. 1300, exp. 8, 1790; AGN Indios, vol. 38, exp. 37, 1717; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1459, exp. 5, 1738; AGN, Tierras, vol. 901, exp. 1, 1679-1788; AGN, Tierras, vol. 2672, segunda parte, exp. 31, 1740. Taylor, Drinking …, p. 120, and Tutino, pp. Ill, 113, also show similar strategies.

62 AGN, Tierras, vol. 1349, exp. 5, 1803; AJP, 1737, no. 6; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1058, exp. 2, 1780; AGN, Indios, vol. 25, exp. 414, fol. 291, 1670; AGN, Indios, vol. 38, exp. 37, 1717; AGN, Tierras, vol. 412, exp. 5, 1723; AGN, Tierras, vol. 13, exp. 2, 1771; AGN, Mercedes, vol. 63, fols. 88v–90v, 1694.

63 AGN, Indios, vol. 64, exp. 138, 1773; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1084, exp. 3, 1782; AGN, Indios, vol. 64, exp. 42, 1772; AJP, 1736, no. 8; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1263, exp. 1, 1795.

64 AGN, Indios, vol. 64, exp. 138, 1773; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1263, exp. 1, 1795; AGN, Tierras, vol. 3330, exp. 12, 1685.

65 AGN, Indios, vol. 64, exp. 42, 1772; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1084, exp. 3, 1782; AJP, 1736, no. 8.

66 AGN, Tierras, vol. 1084, exp. 3, 1782.

67 AGN, Tierras, vol. 565, segunda parte, exp. 2, 1736; AGN, Tierras, vol. 635, exp. 1, 1742.

68 AGN, Tierras, vol. 1354, exp. 7, 1804. Taylor, William, “Conflict and Balance in District Politics; Tecali and Sierra Norte de Puebla in the Eighteenth Century” in Hassig, Ross and Spores, Ronald, eds., Five Centuries of Law and Politics in Central Mexico (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University, Publications in Anthropology, no. 30, 1984),Google Scholar reports a strategy of the same type in the Tecali area when Santa María Toxtepec and many neighboring villages refused to make the regular payments to the corregidor and cacique in protest over tribute and tithes. Taylor, p. 137, Drinking …, also documents an incident in Almoloya when the villagers refused to attend mass in response to the local priest’s unwillingness to preach in their language.

69 Konrad, pp. 165–69 also notes this phenomenon.

70 The economic decline is discussed by Juan Carlos Garavaglia and Grosso, Juan Carlos in “La región de Puebla/Tlaxcala y la economía Novohispana (1670–1821),” Historia Mexicana, 35:4 (1986), 549–600 Google Scholar; and Lipsett-Rivera, “Puebla’s Eighteenth-Century…”

71 AGN, Tierras, vol. 3324, exp. 6, 1754; AGN, Tierras, vol. 3043, exp. 4, 1760.

72 AGN, Tierras, vol. 1122, exp. 1, 1759; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1179, exp. 2, 1789; AGN, Tierras, vol. 2684, exp. 4, 1793; AGN, Tierras, vol. 939, exp. 2, 1769; AGN, Tierras, vol. 959, exp. 1, 1772; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1063, exp. 2, 1781; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1869, exp. 5, 1802.

73 Some of the communities that suffered this fate either partially or totally were the Barrio of Xaxalpa (AGN Tierras, vol. 635, exp. 1, 1742), the barrio of Calcagualco(AGN, Tierras, vol. 485 segunda parte, exp. 1, 1725), and the town of San Juan Ajalpa (AGN, Indios, vol. 41, exp. 224, 1717).

74 Two examples of this phenomenon are Santa María Toxtepec in the jurisdiction of Tecali (AGN, Tierras, vol. 1321, exp. 15, 1800) and San Gerónimo Coyula in the jurisdiction of Atlixco (AGN, Tierras, vol. 1110, exp. 6, 1784). In San Gerónimo Coyula, the Indians declined to pursue a successful lawsuit against the owners of the Haciendas of Coyula and Ayacocotla, the Castillos, because they all worked for them, but also because “los tenía en un terror justíssimo.”

75 Archivo Judicial de Tecali, (Ant.) rollo 69, 1739; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1084, exp. 3, 1782: AJP, 1736, no. 8; AGN, Tierras, vol. 2078, exp. 6, 1797; AGN, Indios, vol. 40, exp. 10, 1716; AGN, Indios, col. 100, fols. 183–84, 1811; AGN, Tierras, vol. 1869, exp. 5, 1802.

76 AGN, Intendentes, vol. 40, fol. 100v, 10 June 1790.