Ethnicity, Caste, and Rulership in Mixquiahuala, México

Mezquital Padrones

The series of 1717-1718 padrones from the area now preserved in AGN Bienes Nacionales provide a wealth of detail on the communities of the Mezquital. In addition to simple demography, they shed light on naming practices, political structure, and the integration of Spanish and indigenous populations. As far as I can determine, these documents have never been studied, so I provide a brief description of the contents of each.

The seven padrones discussed here appear to be part of a broader survey of the diocese of México, as several contemporaneous padrones from further afield were catalogued with them. In Mixquiahuala and several of its neighbors, they were associated with a visit of inspection by don Juan Corral de Morales, who reviewed the parish records and signed off on them at the same date. A similar visita occurred in Tepetitlan, from which no padrón survives, indicating that the original series was more complete than the extant one. As it is, they cover much of the area of the Mezquital, from Tula in the south, through Mixquiahuala and Chilcuautla north to Ixmiquilpan, and west to Chapantongo and Huichapan (see Figure 1, which also includes neighboring parishes from which no padrones are extant).

Bienes Nacionales 808, exp. 16: Mixquiahuala, 1718

This expediente comprises eight leaves. One pair is a church inventory, which was not transcribed. A full transcription of the remained is in Appendix 1. The padrón contains separate lists of the inhabitants of San Antonio Mixquiahuala and its sujetos San Agustin Tecpatepec, Tepeitic or Barrio de los Reyes, and the Hacienda de San Diego de los Pozos. Each list is subdivided by civil status: casados or married, viudos or widows, solteros, defined as single individuals of ten and up, and muchachos, or children aged three to ten. The first three lists are also separated by race, into indios and gente de razón, or non-Indians.

Mixquiahuala and Tecpatepec were large villages, overwhelmingly indigenous, with a handful of Spaniards, mestizos, and mulatos. Although Tecpatepec was technically a sujeto, it had grown to a larger size than its cabecera, and is today a separate municipio. Each was divided into three barrios, but these subdivisions were quite different. Three quarters of the population of Mixquiahuala lived in a single barrio, that of San Nicolas. San Antonio, despite bearing the same saint’s name as the pueblo as a whole, and San Pedro were much smaller. The modern town is still divided into two barrios, San Nicolas and San Antonio, with no trace of the name San Pedro (Milton Flores, personal communication March 2001). The three barrios of Tecpatepec had more equal populations. In addition, San Juan was spatially distinct and has preserved its identity until today as the community of San Juan Tepa. Interestingly, San Juan is the only one of the six barrios that regularly appears in the parish records; the others may not have been spatially distinct. Aside from San Pedro, each barrio had its own nobility, marked by the titles don and doña and listed first in the padrón. Individuals are listed under a pair of names, the first drawn from a restricted pool of baptismal names and the second either a Spanish surname or, less often, a second baptismal name. Fewer women bear surnames than men. Each barrio contains several clusters of surnames, particularly among the nobility, suggesting that surnames were inherited and relatives often lived near each other.

Tepeitic was very different. Not only was it far smaller, but a full third of the population was non-Indian. Among the Indians, the nobility were graphically distinguished from the commoners by a line drawn to separate the list of names. Nine noble couples outnumber the five non-noble pairs and five non-Indian pairs. Most individuals, male and female, bear surnames.

The Hacienda de los Pozos list is not divided into racial categories, perhaps because there was no citizen/other distinction to be made, unlike a pueblo de indios where any gente de razón would be outsiders. Judging from parish records, the Hacienda list also omits the hacendado’s family: In 1729, Capitan don Diego de Zelada lived there with his daughter doña Antonia Maria de Zelada; she was born at the Hacienda in 1711. They certainly maintained a residence at the Hacienda throughout the intervening period, but they may have spent most of the time in Actopan or another larger town. Those who are listed are less likely to bear surnames than the inhabitants of the other communities, and none are titled don.

These communities were far smaller than they had been a century and a half earlier. In the 1548 Suma de Visitas, Mixquiahuala had 1349 inhabitants (Paso y Troncoso 1905:2:143-4). Tecpatepec appears in the same list with a population of 1394 under the name Talguacpa, which had estancias named Tecpatepec and Teticpan and a pueblo named Teapa (ibid.:2:219). By 1569, Mixquiahuala had 1559 adults, Tecpatepec 1297, and Tepeitic 480 (ibid.:3:63-66).

Spatially, the parish of Mixquiahuala was quite spread out (Figure 1). Tecpatepec is 15 km by road from the cabecera. Tepeitic is about the same distance, with the canyon of the Rio Tula in between. Today it is close to a half day’s walk from Mixquiahuala to Tepeitic, and the shortest route leads through Tuni, which belongs to the adjacent parish of Chilcuautla. In fact, in 1569, Tepeitic appears to have been an estancia belonging to Tula, despite being in the parish of Mixquiahuala. Although the Hacienda de los Pozos is not indicated on the map, it spread over lands immediately adjacent to the cabecera to the northeast. Adjoining both Mixquiahuala and the Hacienda de los Pozos was the Hacienda de Ulapa, which was subject to the more distant pueblo of Tetepango. In 1569, Ulapa or Uilotepeque was an estancia of Mixquiahuala; it is unknown when it moved to the jurisdiction of Tetepango.

Bienes Nacionales 808, exp. 26: Chilcuautla, 1718

This expediente was originally numbered 20. It comprises 12 leaves, beginning with a single page inventory of the ornaments of the church and convent of San Agustin in the pueblo of Nuestra Senora de la Asumpsion de Chilquautla, signed by fray Manuel Calderón. The inventory is far shorter than that for Mixquiahuala, suggesting a poorer parish. The modern parish church of Chilcuautla was not dedicated until 1798, confirming this relative poverty (Kugel and Martínez 1998). The remainder of the document is a padrón of the parish, which I have transcribed. The first four pages list the occupants of the cabecera by household, with the ages of most individuals given. This is followed by a similar two page list of the inhabitants of the barrio Desaqualoya. The next page is headed Muchachas de Doctrina de Chilquautla, while the one after that has two lists, of Muchachos and Muchachas de Doctrina. The second list of muchachas repeats the first portion of the first list. A comparison of the lists with the preceding household padrón suggests that the children may be listed both with their parents and en masse. The next two and a half pages list the casados, viudos, solteros, and muchachos of Tezcatepec in the same format as the Mixquiahuala padrón, followed on the same page by a similar listing for Tlacotlapilco (or Tlacuitlapilco). The Tlacotlapilco list ends after five solteros. The reverse of that leaf and the next two pages are in a completely different hand. Each is a list of hijos de familia from a specified barrio: Batad, Beati, and Llanos. Given the lack of children in the preceding Tlacotlapilco list, it is likely that these lists derive from that pueblo. Finally, the last three pages list the inhabitants of Tuni by category.

The total population of the doctrina, assuming that the separate muchachos de doctrina list does not repeat children listed elsewhere, is 1213. The separate listings of children make it difficult to be sure of relative population sizes, but the communities of Chilcuautla, Tezcatepec, Tlacotlapilco, and Tuni were all of the same order of magnitude. One important omission in these lists is race. It is likely that this is because the non-Indian inhabitants were not listed by Fray Calderón. The marriage records of Mixquiahuala make it clear that some individuals listed in Tezcatepec in particular were mestizos, but they may have culturally belonged to the indigenous community. This population is dramatically lower than that of 2800 for Chilcuautla and 1961 for Tlacuitlapilco reported in the Suma de Visitas from 1548 (Paso y Troncoso 1905:2:220). In 1571, there were 1218 tributaries (and thus more inhabitants) in Chilcuautla, 800 residents in Tlacuitlapilco, and 200 residents in Tezcatepec (ibid.:3:98-100).

The structure of this padrón can be compared with that of the modern municipio, as seen in Kugel and Martínez 1998, as well as what little is known of the communities’ earlier history (Figure 1). The four pueblos retain their names and relative size, although all are much larger. Tuni or Tunij is now known as Tunititlan; apparently the change occurred when surveyors mapped the community and decided to Nahuatize the Otomi name (Milton Flores, personal communication March 2001). There is still a barrio named Zacualoya, just to the north of Chilcuautla. Tlacotlapilco has barrios named Santa Ana Batad and El Llano, and another named Bethí, which may be the same as Beati. According to a recent dictionary (Wallis 1956), "batha" actually means "llano," and the word is a common descriptive toponym throughout the Mezquital. While Tlacotlapilco now has seven outlying barrios, these three are roughly evenly spaced around it. Xochitlan is included as a sujeto on the map, because it appears to be such in other parish records, but it is not included in the padrón.

Most men in the list bear Spanish surnames. Some have two first names and at least one Otomi name (Siqui) appears in Tezcatepec. Far more women have two first names, and Denij ("flower") is a fairly common Otomi name. Muchachos as well as adults are listed with surnames, and when households are listed together, the children generally bear their father’s name. Eight men and five women in the cabecera bear the title don; none in any of the other communities do, although the lists of hijos de familia from Tlacotlapilco’s barrios name the alcaldes of each barrio as dons.

Bienes Nacionales 808, exp. 2: Chapantongo, 1718

This expediente comprises eight leaves, bound with string and numbered 1 through 7 in the upper right corner. I have transcribed all of them. The last three sides are blank. The first five pages list the inhabitants of the cabecera, with the casados divided by barrio. The next two pages list the inhabitants of the pueblo of San Juan, followed by single page listings of the ranchería of Christobal Galban and the servants of the Hacienda de la Teneria. The next page is headed Padrón de los Españoles, Mestisos y Mulatos. In this listing, the population of the cabecera is followed by that of two ranchos. The population of Chapantongo enumerated here is dramatically lower than that recorded in 1570, when there were 1580 tributaries (Gerhard 1993:385). It is also more concentrated, with three barrios and one sujeto instead of the three estancias and fifteen barrios known from 1548, and the two sujetos of San Juan and San Pedro from 1571. The parish is much less indigenous, both biologically and culturally, than those of Mixquiahuala and Chilcuautla: Almost half the total population is non-Indian, both in the cabecera and the ranchos and rancherías that surround it.

While adults all bear two names, the lists of muchachos include single baptismal names alone, making it impossible to connect them to their parents. Four men and one woman in the cabecera are titled don; three Spanish men also bear the title. No one in the other barrios or sujetos is titled. Most individuals bear two Spanish names, although a few women are named Deni.

Bienes Nacionales 808, exp. 1: Huichapan, 1718 (Indians)

This expediente comprises 24 numbered and tied together leaves, with the first and last blank. It is signed by fray Francisco Garcia de Avila, cura ministro. It follows a consistent format throughout. First are the casados of the cabecera, divided into barrios, and then hijos de familia, listed by barrio. Children are listed under baptismal names alone, but have their ages specified as well. Solteros are listed by barrio as well, with one page in the middle of the list of muchachos and the others afterwards. Finally come the lists of viudos, also by barrio. On f.12r a similar list of the population of the sujeto San Jose Atlan begins; it is also divided into two barrio lists. F.16v begins the list for San Sebastian Dacapäni, f.18v that for San Bartholome Tlaxcalilla. After the casados from San Bartholome follow those from San Miguelito Caltepantla, then the other categories from San Bartholome, and then those from San Miguelito. Finally, f.22r-23v contain lists for Santa Maria de Nopala and San Buenaventura de Juanacapa. The document ends with total population figures of 800 couples, or 1600 casados, 2052 muchachos, 244 solteros, and 224 viudos, for a total of 4120.

The total population of the parish is far larger than of the preceding ones, but it is spread across many more communities and a wider geographical area. Not only are there five sujetos, but Huichapan itself has fifteen barrios besides the cabecera: the Barrio de los Mexicanos, that de los Cantores, de Joseph Rojas, de Phelipe Luiz el Nandon, de Joan Luiz el Moso, del Peru, del Juan de Santiago, de Pedro Phelipe de la Encrusijada, de Joseph Phelipe Nidô, de la Sieneguilla nombrado Bathä, de Lazaro Martin, de la Comunidad de Mittëhë, de la Savinita, de Joan Martin el de la Otra Banda (presumably on the other side of the river), and de la Sieneguilla nombrado Bathamanëy. San Jose Atlan has one additional barrio, de Miguel Garzia. Many, but not all, of the barrios are named after the first man listed in the padrón, indicating that the names are not permanent toponyms. Most men and many women bear Spanish surnames, the others two baptismal names. Surnames cluster within barrios: 12 out of 32 adult men in the Barrio de Juan de Santiago bear the eponymous surname, including Juan himself. Another clear difference is social: Out of the 4120 people in the parish, only three men and one woman bear the title don.

Bienes Nacionales 808, exp. 3: Huichapan, 1718 (non-Indians)

Although numbered separately, this padrón was prepared along with the preceding one, is in the same hand, and bears the same signature, dated June 2, 1718. It comprises twenty folios, the first one and last side blank. It is organized quite differently from that of the Indians. It begins with a list of 117 homes, each labeled with a sequential number and the owners’ names, followed by the names, ages, and relationships of the other members of the household. Some households were quite large, as seen in house 6, which had sixteen residents:

• Cassa de Diego Marttin Baldes y Asuero, casado con doña Maria de Andrade y de Moctesuma, españoles, con los hijos siguientes

• Angela Baldes y Moctesuma de 26 años

• Josepha Baldes y Moctesuma de 25 años

• Anttonia Baldes y Moctesuma de 21 años

• Nicolas Baldes y Moctesuma de 20 años

• Manuel Anttonio Baldes y Moctesuma de 17 años

• Maria Anna Baldes y Moctesuma de 13 años

• viuda de dicha cassa Francisca Baldes y Moctesuma con los hijos siguientes

• Anttonio Joseph Redondo de 16 años

• Christobal Redondo de 10 años

• Marcos Redondo de 8 años

• Maria Getrudis Redondo de 6 años

• Francisco Redondo de 4 años

• huerfanos de dicha cassa Anttonia Maria española de 7 años

• y Efigenia yndia de 25 años

Each individual is racially labeled. Interestingly, the last two houses contain four indias prinsipales, or noblewomen, who are not called doña. Two of them are married to coyotes, a term which this document appears to apply to all Spanish-Indian mixes; the racial designation of the others’ spouses is unspecified.

This list is followed by one headed "Haziendas y ranchos de españoles, que tiene esta doctrina." Each hacienda listing follows the same format as the Spanish households, and most are about the same length, although some are much longer. Their names, in order, are the haciendas of Como Deje, Tepú, la Sieneguilla, Nasthá, Ðãndo, Tlaxcalilla, la Cruz, el Casadero, and el Astillero; the ranchos of el Sitio and de Joseph Trejo; the haciendas of Ðenguíz and Nimachú; the ranchos of Ðeccã and Mäxthõo; the haciendas of Mäxthõo, Ttzihá, and San Francisco Buenavista; the rancho of la Batanza; the haciendas of Zindô, el Saucillo, Ðado, San Ysidro Tocopán, Devegõ, Bathã, and Guadalupe; the rancho of las Casas Coloradas; the pueblo of San Joseph Atlan; the hacienda of Boyé; the rancho of Guxpi; the hacienda of Quatixithî; the ranchos of San Geronimo, Ttzeatthé, and Ttzothé; the hacienda of Naxcatzã; and the rancho of el Cangrejo.

The overall population of the two padrones is presented in Table 4.

Bienes Nacionales 808, exp. 5: Ixmiquilpan, 1718

This is the longest of the padrones, bound together as a book. The first eight unnumbered leaves list the households of all non-Indians in Ixmiquilpan, Tlaxintla, the Hacienda de la Florida, and the Minas del Cardonal, signed by fray Luis Pantoja, ministro. Only a handful of children’s ages are given. Inserted into this are a pair of leaves in a different hand with a list of muchachos. The second portion is 58 numbered leaves in the same hand and with the same signature. These list the entire Indian population, with a running total in the upper right corner. The total population is 1225 non-Indians and 3667 Indians, slightly smaller than that of Huichapan and spread over approximately the same geographical area. Ixmiquilpan proper was predominantly a Spanish city, with the indigenous population distributed across the surrounding landscape in smaller communities.

Bienes Nacionales 912, exp. 5: Tula, 1717

The first seven pages of this expediente are a numbered list of 81 Spanish households like that found in the preceding document. The next seven numbered folios list the Indian population of Tula, also by household, but without ages. After the cabecera follow the barrios of Tlacpa, Tepetlapam, Tlaguelilpa, Quetzalguapa, Panoaya, San Francisco, and San Pedro, and the gobierno of Tultengo. The next set of ten numbered folios contains the gobierno of Santa Maria Suxchitlan, the pueblo of Santa Ana, the barrio of Santa Maria Michimaloyaltongo, the pueblos of San Andres, San Francisco Tlaguelilpa, and Tezontepeque, and the barrio of Panuaia. Another set of twelve numbered folios contain the pueblos of San Marcos and San Lorenso Xipacoya, the barrios of Xalpa, Xilonenco, and Anthamahay, the pueblos of San Pedro Alpuyeca and San Miguel, the barrio of San Miguel, the pueblos of Santa Maria Ylucan, San Lucas, and San Juan Michimaloya, another barrio de San Miguel, the gobierno of Santa Maria Sacamulpa, San Pedro Tlaxcoapa, the barrios of Pepechoca, La Palma, San Bartholome, Tlaxcoapa, and El Serro.

The entire list is in one hand, and all communities are listed by household. Unlike that of Huichapan, this padrón includes many nobles of both sexes. There are very few Otomi names, either of people or places. Several Nahuatl names, as well as saint’s names, are repeated in different places, which could potentially confuse research into local records.

General Observations on the Padrones

As shown in Figure 1, these padrones provide an outline of the political geography and demography of the Mezquital in the early eighteenth century. They span a broad, contiguous area, with gaps for the parishes of Tepetitlan and Alfaxayuca. Although they all contain the same basic information, it is clear that the priests who compiled them had quite a lot of freedom in how they organized the lists. The parishes appear quite different from each other, ranging dramatically in size, nucleation, and social differentiation. Some have large non-Indian populations, others not. In the more southern parishes, the indigenous population lived in pueblos de indios which were occasionally subdivided into barrios, with a large native nobility spread across all communities. Both pueblos and barrios often bore Nahuatl names. Towards the north and west, Spanish haciendas and rancherías proliferated, and more Indians lived away from larger pueblos. At the same time, the pueblos were subdivided to a greater degree, particularly in Huichapan. Many of these smaller subdivisions bore Otomi names, and very few contained any one identified as an indio principal. In the Rio Tula valley, barrios are named as places. To the west, and to a lesser degree to the north in Ixmiquilpan, many barrios are named after individuals who may or may not be listed as residents. Paradoxically, this suggests that western settlements were still organized along older principles of community ownership by native nobles, despite the fact that almost no one was recognized as a noble. Early sixteenth century parish records from Mixquiahuala indicate that that community was then structured much as Huichapan was in 1718. Thus the records from 1597 describe different individuals as macehuales (commoners, subjects) of don Bartolome (Sanchez de Granada, although this is generally omitted), don Diego, Pablo Ximenez, don Felipe de Santiago, Pedro Lopez, don Luis del Aguila, Antonio de Mendoça, and don Felipe de Reynoso. Others belong to the estancia of Martin Ceron and the estancia de dueñas. It is unclear whether these labels mean that macehuales were personally subject to the named individuals, or belonged to geographically defined communities. Some of these noblemen had many more macehuales than others, with don Bartolome in the lead. By the 1630s, the term "macehual de" is almost never seen. Instead, it appears that these subdivisions had metamorphosed into the barrios seen in 1718, with the term "barrio de don Bartolome" gradually replaced by "barrio de San Nicolas."

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