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Círculos de poder en la Nueva España
Colonial Period
Círculos de poder en la Nueva España. Edited by Carmen Castañeda. Mexico City: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1998. Maps. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. 239 pp. Paper. This little book, beautifully presented, deals with studies of New Spain and the peripheries. Three essays are set in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and the rest in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Seven represent archival research undertaken for the dissertation; two are written by previously published authors. Power is defined as "making decisions and imposing them on other people" (p. 5). But it is elites that these essays focus on, elites with status, wealth, and honor. Some have power, some do not.
Ethelia Ruiz Medrano studies Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza and his cronies, who sold rights to encomiendas and used Indian slaves in textile factories and sugar refineries. The viceroy was enamored of stock raising, trade, and exploration. In the sixteenth century, he sent out ships destined for Peru and authorized expeditions to explore the Pacific and the southwest of what is now the United States.
For the seventeenth century Chantal Cramaussel uses parish records in Parral to discover prosperous hacendados and rich merchants as "oligarchs" participating in local public offices and the military and opposing royal governors and the audiencia. Francisco González Hermosillo gives a rare view of cacicazgos and Indian government in Cholula. While alienated from Spanish government and with their matrilineal heritage "frittered away," some indigenous nobles were still prosperous and remained an integral part of local government.
Norma Angélica Castillo Palma uses sources in Spain and Mexico to examine limpieza de sangre in Yucatán during the eighteenth century. One man escaped paying tribute by becoming mestizo; one became an hidalgo; and one became an Indian noble. All are good examples that supplement the work of James King.
Ana Isabel Martínez Ortega finds that merchants in Campeche were Spaniards, who held positions in the ayuntamiento, while in Mérida and Valladolid regidores were creoles. She finds no influential encomenderos or descendants of conquerors. Rather, elites were merchants, stockmen, and farmers. Similarly, in Guadalajara, María de la Luz Ayala finds a single elite composed of successful merchants and agriculturalists. [End Page 178] From 1795 to 1820, great merchants and hacendados held ayuntamiento and consular offices and traded with Castile, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Caracas, and the Philippines. José Cuello traces the single "whitening" elite in Saltillo from 1577 to 1821. Peninsulares controlled the ayuntamiento in the eighteenth century. Carmen Castañeda finds 55 Basques in Guadalajara in 1791, with San Miguel Allende as their stronghold. They were hacendados, stockmen, merchants, and clergy.
Frédérique Langue writes that elites in Zacatecas were miners or stockmen, with the richest being elevated to the nobility. Their many sources of wealth made it possible to bribe officials successfully. While in Guanajuato, Basques fought with montañeses, although these two groups collaborated in Zacatecas. Lange asserts that the Tribunal de Minería, with its monopoly of mercury and credit, freed mining interests from the Audiencia.
What aspects of colonial Mexico interest these young scholars? The multiple economic interests of the elites; the contributions of Indian elites; local government; Spanish ethnic groups; and escapes from status via the gracias a sacar. Regionalism is emphasized. The royal bureaucracy and the military in the late colonial period are only briefly mentioned. Missionaries and parish priests were targeted for future studies. The authors joined together at sessions on elites in the 47th Congress of Americanists in New Orleans.
Doris M. Ladd
University of Hawai'i, Manoa
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Circulos de poder en la Nueva Espana (review)
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