Mexico's Indigenous Communities: Their Lands and Histories, 1500-2010

1: Historical Background: Indian Access to Colonial Justice in the Sixteenth Century

11 A few years after the conquest of Mexico, a Spanish judge, Don Alonso de Zuazo, heard and pronounced judgment in a dispute concerning matters of land that arose among members of the native nobility. The conflict was apparently serious enough that it not only dragged on for some time but also resulted in the deaths of antagonists on both sides. In the course of the dispute, the Indian nobles presented several codices to the judge (“paintings” was the term used during the colonial period to describe these manuscripts). After he had examined the codices, the judge noted in laudatory fashion that the numerous details and fine points they contained allowed them to be treated like any other comprehensible and admissible legal document: “they provide evidence as much as any other writings provide it.” The parties involved in the litigation took a different line, however, maintaining that the codices neither reflected their problem nor offered a possible solution. Consequently, the judge ordered that the tlacuilo (the person who painted the manuscripts, also indigenous scribe), whom he referred to as “amantecas” (artisan), repaint the codex, but this remedy failed to placate the Indian litigants. The judge then decided to bring in an enormous dog (lebrel) he had previously let loose on more than 200 criminals and Indians convicted of Historical Background Indian Access to Colonial Justice in the Sixteenth Century 1 Historical Background 12 idolatry. The dog had been fattened on human flesh. With the terrifying sight of the ferocious animal as a backdrop, the judge informed the Indians that if they did not “paint the truth denoting the markers and boundaries of that controversy ,” the dog would be unleashed to kill them. Instantly, as if by magic, the artist painted a manuscript that was “altogether certain, and the parties approved it.” The legal dispute was thus fully resolved, and the litigants on both sides emerged satisfied. Indeed, so content were they with the Spanish magistrate’s clear judgment that the Indians decided to convert to Christianity.1 The evidence and proceedings in this case illustrate several points that merit our attention. First, they indicate that the native population was drawn into the judicial system in New Spain at an early date; second, that traditional indigenous codices (pictorial manuscripts) and maps were important evidence in trials; and third, that protocols existed—at least at this juncture—that enabled Indians to obtain justice in a manner they could comprehend, although on occasion this entailed the use of threats and other devices by the sovereign power whose final authority could not be questioned. Clearly, this third option does not seem to have unsettled the Indians or struck them as peculiar; in fact, to resolve matters on the basis of doctrine, authoritarian pronouncements may have accorded with their own view of the world. JUSTICE IN ANCIENT MESOAMERICA To understand how the justice system worked in Mesoamerica prior to the Spanish conquest is a very complex undertaking, made even more difficult by the fact that the application of the system undoubtedly varied from region to region. I do not intend to plunge into an extended discussion of this issue, yet I think it is important to cover certain points briefly. Thanks to the work of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, we know that a special court called tlacxitlan (beneath, or at the foot of something) existed in the royal sanctum to hear testimony regarding “criminal activities,”2 perhaps signifying in this context that those who were asking for justice were reaching up to a higher power from a lower position. In this court were “the oidores, or lord judges, and chief nobles” who had the responsibility of judging criminals and—should they choose—of sentencing them to death, which could be carried out in a number of ways. Or, by their verdict the guilty might instead be banished or imprisoned; the court decisions the nobles made apparently also included granting freedom to slaves.3 The Indian judges in this description were nobles who possessed the authority to hand down harsh judgments, including imposing public death by stoning, against persons who belonged to the same class; in this court, evidently, the only people who were tried and faced judgment were those who belonged to the nobil- Historical Background 13 ity.4 Further, these judges from the native nobility tried to fulfill their duties and exercise justice honestly and impartially. Sahagún also observed that...