Doctoral Dissertation Research: Native Litigiousness, Cultural Change and the Spanish Legal System in Tlaxcala, New Spain (1580-1640)

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

This dissertation project examines the legal activities of a native people in New Spain (now, Mexico) called Tlaxcalans between 1580 and 1640 and the consequences of their litigiousness. During this time, the native population fell to its nadir, the Spanish and casta (mixed race) population increased dramatically, and the period of conquest and expansion was being supplanted by a period of administrative consolidation. This researcher hypothesizes that Tlaxcalans responded to these changes and adjusted their legal strategies accordingly. Consequently, by accommodating to the changing political environment, Tlaxcalans accessed new legal tools that were offered by the system and, in turn, shaped the political and demographic shifts within their community, and influenced the evolving legal system of the Spanish Empire. Building on the current literature in both Spanish and native history, two bodies of literature that rarely speak to each other, this project contributes to research that investigates native people's agency in historical processes and to literature that recasts the administration of the Spanish Empire as social phenomena. For this project, the researcher examines documents pertaining to the litigiousness of Tlaxcalans and to Spanish legal thought, which are found in archives in Mexico and Spain.