Indigenous Rememberings and Forgettings

Sixteenth-Century Nahua Letters and Petitions to the Spanish Crown

Bibliographic Data

ID3984378
AuthorsKelly S Mcdonough (0000-0002-8316-4400, corresponding author), Kelly Mcdonough, Kelly McDonough Kelly McDonough
Year2018
Volume5
Issue1
Pages69-99
Publication date2018-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNative American and Indigenous Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2332-1261 • E-ISSN: 2332-127X
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/nai.2018.a704739
OpenAlexW4379780081
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited10

Indigenous Rememberings and Forgettings:Sixteenth-Century Nahua Letters and Petitions to the Spanish Crown Kelly McDonough (bio) INDIGENOUS PEOPLE have always used the technologies available to them, old and new, to survive and thrive. It is not surprising, then, that the People took to alphabetic writing as soon as it was available to them, adopting and adapting it as best suited their own circumstances. While alphabetic writing isn't the only technology they have learned, practiced, and exercised well, it has served specific purposes in specific times and places. From the earliest days of the introduction/imposition of alphabetic writing Indigenous peoples wrote in their own languages and those of the colonizers, which they had made their own. In the Common Pot and far beyond, perhaps with Kānaka Maoli steel-tipped pens or Chamorro discursive flourish, the People have written letters, sermons, hymns, childhood recollections, personal memoirs, plays, testimony, poems, operas, fiction, nonfiction, and the list could go on and on.1 They wrote to challenge stereotypes and misrepresentations, to evangelize, to demand sovereignty, and for an innumerable range of additional reasons. While some wrote with delight, others did so with anger and perhaps even desperation. Until rather recently, the now-untenable storyline that would have Indigenous people exist only in the realm of the oral and Europeans and their descendants in the world of letters has overshadowed, if not silenced, Indigenous intellectual legacies in the written sphere. Across the globe, however, scholars and community members continue to uncover rich examples of Indigenous writing in national and local archives and in the once-stuck drawers of our great-grandfather's rickety old desk.2 Our only-just-begun task of the recovery of these materials gains traction as each new Indigenous voice presents itself; Indigenous writing can no longer be thought of as anomalous or "unexpected."3 What started as intermittent whispers from the archive has transformed into a steady and sometimes raucous conversation. In this essay, Nahuas (Mexica) of sixteenth-century colonial Mexico add their voices to those of Indigenous people around the world and across time who have picked up the pen. [End Page 69] During the first several decades after the Spanish conquest of Mexico-Tenochtitlan in 1521, Nahua nobles of the Central Valley of Mexico maintained their privileged positions in the social order by embracing Catholicism and swearing fealty to the Spanish monarchy.4 The nobles ensured social stability, facilitated tribute collection, and served as models to the rest of Indigenous society of the "proper" Christian attitudes and behaviors. By the mid-sixteenth century, however, Native elites were losing social, political, and economic power.5 Large portions of their landholdings had been redistributed among Spanish newcomers, and they would soon no longer enjoy complete exemption from tribute to the Crown. Add to this that severe demographic decline meant there were fewer commoners to pay tribute to the nobles in goods and labor. Together, these posed great challenges to the prospect of the noble class maintaining any semblance of their former wealth or privilege.6 To shape and respond to these developments, Nahua nobles wrote numerous letters and petitions, mostly in Spanish but also in Latin and Nahuatl, to the Spanish Crown.7 These texts contain, in varying combinations, six main requests: 1. recognition and/or restoration of their right to govern; 2. restitution of lands; 3. exemption from tribute; 4. pensions in perpetuity; 5. an award of a coat of arms; and 6. other privileges reserved for Spaniards, such as the right to ride on horseback and carry a sword or other weapons. The Crown would not have approved these requests indiscriminately; claims were more than likely met with skepticism, since, as historian José Carlos de la Puente Luna has pointed out, the Crown held a negative view of Native lords, whom the Spaniards found to be overly litigious and disturbingly adept at learning and applying the tricks of the Spanish courts.8 While the demands enumerated were mostly unsuccessful, the letters provide evidence of how Nahua elites used the written word in attempts to defend and improve their position in colonial society.9 In the pages that follow I identify productive "rememberings" and "forgettings

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