Baroque Sovereignty: Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora and the Creole Archive of Colonial Mexico

4. Counterhistory and Creole Governance in the Riot of 1692

158 c h a p t e r 4 Counterhistory and Creole Governance in the Riot of 1692 From the early sixteenth century onward, the specter of popular rebellion had haunted the colonial administration of New Spain. Although arguably in the years after the conquest the Crown feared an uprising by disgruntled encomenderos more than it did rebellion by indigenous subjects, as the viceroyalty matured the growth of a nonindigenous urban population fueled fears of a general plebeian revolt.1 Yet although insurrections in rural and provincial areas occurred regularly during the seventeenth century, prior to 1692 Mexico City witnessed only one large-scale disturbance when in 1624, protestors sacked the viceregal palace and trampled the portrait of the viceroy, who barely escaped by disguising himself as a servant.2 Another rebellion, supposedly planned by Africans and mulattoes in 1612, was violently aborted before it even began.3 In the middle of the century, tensions between the viceroy and the powerful bishop of Puebla, Juan de Palafox, also created near-riot conditions among the bishop’s supporters, for the most part drawn from the lower classes. Animosities continued, however, until Palafox was ultimately reined in after his confrontations with the following viceroy .4 In fact, rather than the rebellious agitation projected by colonial policy and jurisprudence, the political history of seventeenthcentury New Spain was dominated by intrigue between Creole and peninsular elites jockeying for positions within the lower echelons of viceregal administration.5 Even the popular rebellion of 1624 was heightened by grievances of the local Creole elite and secular clergy against the viceroy.6 Counterhistory and Creole Governance in the Riot of 1692 159 By contrast, the massive riot that broke out on June 8, 1692, uniquely mirrored elite fears of a general plebeian revolt. Although recent historiography has questioned the exact causes and political circumstances of the riot, official reports and testimony written afterward agree on the basic events. In the months leading up to the riot, an acute food shortage caused by heavy flooding and crop failure stirred panic in the city, especially among commoners. As a result, a crowd of indigenous women began gathering daily around the city’s central warehouse, demanding access to the corn stores. One day a scuffle broke out and the warehouse guard attacked the crowd, injuring a woman. When the same scene occurred on the following day, this time possibly killing a woman, the crowd carried her body in protest to the archbishop’s house. Receiving no response there, the crowd continued through the city streets, gathering participants as it went. Lower-class Spanish immigrants and Creoles joined indigenous and casta subjects and alongside cries and jeers in Nahuatl could be heard the familiar Spanish refrain: “Long live the king and death to bad government!” (¡Qué viva el rey y muera el mal gobierno!). Upon arriving at the zócalo, the central plaza that housed both the viceregal palace and the city’s newly finished cathedral, the rioters attacked the palace itself, setting it aflame. Others turned to the central marketplace , looting merchandise and burning stalls while mocking Spanish luxuries. By the time the crowd had finally dispersed it had left the most spectacular scene of destruction since the Spanish conquest: the viceregal palace had been half burned to the ground and the central marketplace ransacked and destroyed.7 Recent work by social historians has done much to further understanding of the political context of the riot. While not as clearly as in the case of the 1624 riot, documents from 1692 suggest that social divisions within New Spain’s elite were aggravated by a combination of Spain’s precarious financial situation and the particular interventions of the viceroy Conde de Galve in the administrative structure of the viceroyalty. The reams of reports sent to the Council of Indies (Consejo de Indias) after the riot were for the most part intended to exculpate the viceroy from any wrongdoing. But amid these accolades and defenses were several letters from disgruntled members of the colonial elite who signed only as “loyal vassals” (vasallos leales).8 Now identified as two peninsular bureaucrats with long careers in the Americas, the authors of these letters may have voiced a more generalized discontent with the Conde de Galve, whose governance had chapter 4 160 favored Creoles in administrative positions, initiated a program of moral reform, and reined in economic rewards that overstepped Spanish mercantilist policies...