Identity, Ritual, and Power in Colonial Puebla

8. The Ceremonial Expression of Jurisdictional Tension, 1750 – 1775

153 chapter eight The Ceremonial Expression of Jurisdictional Tension, 1750–1775 Almost five decades after the dispute during the Adoration of the Holy Cross, Puebla’s cathedral witnessed another dramatic display of disunity. Puebla’s cabildo never subsidized the feast day of Santiago (July 25), but it did have an obligation to attend the cathedral’s yearly mass. Because Santiago served as the empire’s primary patron, his feast day served various purposes. By attending the feast-day mass, poblanos had the opportunity to express their faith, seek the saint’s assistance, ask for intercession on behalf of the Crown, and reaffirm their identities as royal subjects. Ideally, the ceremony should have united poblanos, but in 1770 it did just the opposite. Upon entering the cathedral, the cabildo and Governor Esteban Bravo y Rivera approached the main altar to participate in a ritual known as the “peace.” Before feast-day masses, a prelate would offer bishops and governmental leaders a relic or sacred image to kiss; by humbling themselves before a holy object, leaders demonstrated their community’s submission to the Catholic faith, just as vassals demonstrated their submission by kneeling and kissing the hand of their lord. Kings, viceroys, alcaldes mayores, and governors all knelt before the altar when receiving the peace, and served as conduits, demonstrating their kingdom, colony, or city’s submission . But in 1770, the governor rose to his feet immediately before receiving the peace. By refusing to kneel before the officiating prelate, the governor caused a “scandal” and compelled the cathedral chapter to issue a series of complaints to the Council of the Indies.1 154 · Chapter 8 Ceremony worked to highlight the positions of specific corporations in the local power structure. Therefore, to understand the relationship between the dispute on the feast day of Santiago, as well as several other ceremonial disputes that occurred in the 1760s and 1770s, we must first unravel the relationship between the governor, the militia, the cathedral chapter, Bourbon policy, and the cabildo. The late-eighteenth-century reforms changed the political playing field, and ritual worked to announce the rise and decline of certain groups. In the 1770s, it even heralded the decline of the municipal council. In the 1750s, the Crown became more directly involved in local affairs , and in the 1760s, administrators under Charles III began centralizing authority and redrawing boundaries between jurisdictions. In 1754, the Crown changed the title of the president of the cabildo from alcalde mayor to gobernador político y militar, and henceforth, in addition to having all the responsibilities of an alcalde mayor, the governor would exercise supreme authority over the local militias. In the following decade, the Crown began reforming and professionalizing urban and regional militias, and this would have far-reaching implications for the balance of power in Puebla; not only would the addition of a professional militia strengthen the position of the governor, it also made the military a competitor for prestige. Ceremony proved so integral to the political culture of Puebla that as soon as the governor and militia became contenders for power, the cabildo and cathedral chapter began arguing over questions of etiquette and ceremonial precedent. For most of the colonial period, bureaucrats expected a certain level of jurisdictional tension and jostled with the same finite group of rivals during ceremonies, but the changes enacted by Bourbon administrators increased the general level of contention and made ritual into an even greater field of battle. The expansion of the Bourbon bureaucracy created upsets, as new functionaries now competed for the same types of distinctions that had existed previously. What is more, the creation and expansion of a professional militia not only provoked competition between the cabildo and military, but also undermined the authority and prestige of the municipal council and provoked conflict with the cathedral chapter. Disputes from the 1760s and 1770s highlight the delicate balance of power that existed in Puebla and underscore the importance of ceremony to the consolidation of authority. Ceremonial Expression of Tension · 155 Reimagining Authority in the 1750s In the decade preceding the arrival of José de Gálvez, changing circumstances forced councilmen to question exactly where power resided. As noted in the introduction, in the 1750s the cabildo allied with a group of powerful merchants and reclaimed the privilege of collecting the alcabala. Several individuals on the council enjoyed close business and familial ties with the merchants, and this new...