Corporate Community or Corporate Houses?

The House of Guzmán: An Indigenous Cacicazgo in Early Colonial Central Mexico

“…17 After the 16th century, documents no longer identify principales as members of cacicazgos. Testamentary bequests in 18th-century Tlacotepec and Tecali reflect this absence in that they focus on land parcels or other property given largely to nuclear family members (Chance 1998(Chance , 2004Perkins 2005a). Nothing is any longer said about coteries of principales so evident in 16th-century documents (e.g., as enumerated in Table 1).…”

“…Previous investigations of noble houses in 18thcentury Santa Cruz Tlacotepec (Perkins 2005a) and Santiago Tecali (Chance 1996) occurred in similar agrarian settings: poor soils, low precipitation, and other variables inhibited wheat cultivation, the Spanish staple. Consequently, neither community experienced the onslaught of hacienda agriculture seen elsewhere in late 16th-and 17th-century Puebla.…”

“…1 Initial investigations in Puebla revealed how noble houses remained viable institutions in many 16th-century municipalities following the Spanish Conquest (Martínez 1984a;Olivera 1978). Later studies demonstrated how noble houses, treated as cacicazgos by the Spanish, persisted in certain municipalities well into the 18th and early 19th centuries (Chance 2000;Perkins 2005a). They possibly endured even beyond colonial years.…”

“…Still, early legal recognition fostered the survival of noble houses as colonial cacicazgos. Faced with the potential collapse of pre-Hispanic society, 16th-century officials took overt steps to uphold the privileges of local caciques and their institutions (Chance 2000;Martínez 1984a;Olivera 1978;Perkins 2005aPerkins , 2005b. The Spanish jural model of cacicazgo reflected Spain's mayorazgo (Taylor 1972).…”