Translation:True History of the Profound Mexico/17
16. THE COLONY.
As of August 13, 1521, in what is now Mexico; laws, institutions and authorities, product of more than seven thousand five hundred years of cultural development and civilization; that served to stimulate the development of our old grandparents, were discarded and outlawed. Instead, the conqueror first and then the colonizer, imposed their own laws, institutions and authorities, that were not those of Spain. This new judicial and social order was specifically designed to regulate exploitation of the defeated and the degradation of their natural resources, held by spaniards and for the spanish crown. This colonial order is maintained up to this day with some make up, but just as effective.
The indigenous people, defeated and allied to the invaders, soon realized their grave mistake, but it was too late. Hispanic colonial society was born in Mexico, represented by the conquerors. Yesterday the most ruin slag of Medieval Spain, ignorant adventurers, greedy miserable; now converted in great "gentlemen", in some cases, with more wealth and people at their service than the own spanish nobility. The fights and intrigues will be common among the same conquerors first, and then with the royal bureaucracy and traders and investors, that immediately began to arrive, displacing the conquistadors and their descendants.
These stories are a "tragedy" for many conquerors that were displaced by bureaucrats and courtesans who began to arrive in the New Spain. The most obvious case is that of Hernán Cortés himself. His problems with Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, his excesses and his enemies, caught up with him at the end of his life. He died in Spain on December 2, 1547, at the age of 62 without any glory, poor and persecuted by justice, since his enemies pressed charges that led to a long and bureaucratic "trials of residence".[1]
Dispossession, injustice, illegality, violence, were the foundation with which the Colonial Mexico was built; and this, not only against indians and blacks, but the own creole spaniards, those that three centuries later would declare a war of independence, between Creoles and Spaniards.
"The Spaniards were also deeply harmed [gold], if not physically, morally. Cortes not just stole everything he could from his own soldiers, as already noted, but also found the way of extorting from his own allies, to whom he owed everything. Fernando Alva Ixtlixóchitl attests that when his namesake great-grandfather requested the release of his brother Coanacochtzin, Cortés refused, claiming that he was prisoner of the king, and when he begged that at least the shackles were remove as were causing blisters, Cortés agreed, but for a fee in “cash” or gold." (Jose Luis Guerrero. 1990).
During these three hundred years, the anahuaca peoples were treated, first as animals, until it was judicially demonstrated at the Vatican that they had souls, and later as defeated primitive beings, who did not have any rights in the new colonial order. They were tried to be exterminated, not just physically, but fundamentally tried to destroy their cultures and civilization.
"Sepulveda utilized the works of the early Indies chroniclers, particularly those of Oviedo, to demonstrate the superiority of the Spanish civilization over the American cultures and to denigrate the indigenous. With data from Oviedo and humanistic conceptions about civilized peoples, he showed that the native americans lacked science, writing, and humanitarian law, making them unable them to construct fair and rational societies. On the contrary, he asserted that they were addicted to idolatry and practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism, accusations which today would be considered as crimes against humanity. As they lacked qualities indicative of civilized life, they deserved to be subjugated and governed by the spaniards." (Enrique Florescano. 1987)
The anahuacas lost their freedom, the right to an education, maintaining their culture, their language, the land property and all their material and spiritual possessions; women were systematically raped and men and children were forced to work to death without any pay, other than evangelization. Laws, authorities and institutions rarely were on their side. These are the deepest roots of the country created by the creoles later in 1821 and that explain until the present time, the poverty and injustice that Mexico lives.
"In Chichicapan, they not only tired the Indians with the working of mines and the apportioned, but destroyed sown fields, grazed the fields and took control of livestock and other property of the few neighbors [Indian] that survived. When the mines tillage ceased, the Church and the convent were almost in ruins, the seat of the town turned into swamps and fields spread among miners [Spaniards], that were used for cattle farms. Even much later, Burgoa had to sue a Spaniard, owner of one of these farms, because not satisfied with the land he had usurped, overtook the livestock of some miserable Indians under the pretext that 'the mules of these [the Indians] were sons of his donkeys' which was not true either.
Abuses of the apportioned land were not proprietary in the Valley of Oaxaca, as in the same or different ways the Indians interests were always abused in the Sierra and the Mixtec. The easy and lucrative trade invented by the Spaniards, of selling their goods, distributing by force among the Indians, although they did not needed them, at mandatory prices set at the discretion of the seller, was widespread and persevered until the last century of spanish domination." (José Antonio Gay. 1881)
The spaniards did not cancel the aztec tribute system, on the contrary, made it heavier and gradually spread it to all corners of Mexico. From the 16th century native peoples have been condemned through injustice to dispossession, marginalization and physical exploitation, and of their natural resources, in favor of their colonizers. It is assumed that in 1521 to 1621, the Spanish committed one of the greatest humanity genocides, exterminating with a knife, forced labor and particularly with diseases brought from Europe, 20 million human beings. Mexico did not get this population back, until the 1940s.
"These Indians, chastened by the sufferings experienced, came to collect great hatred against whites, also including priests in a common malevolence. They concluded that gold was the only motive of the first; and thus, they resolved to fill their hands of riches, outwardly keeping all christian formalities and to continue in private their old practices." (José Antonio Gay. 1881)
However, the old grandparents, despite everything, and in a prodigious and heroic resistance struggle, managed to keep alive their ancient culture, in the variegated and complex cultural syncretism; not only in the indigenous and peasant communities of the present, but in the mestizo society itself. We can assume that in the 16th century, instead of having a "discovery" there was a "cover-up". That the Spanish structured with a strong colonial system, to extract the wealth of Mexico and very seldom, to develop and improve its original inhabitants and its ancient civilization. However, despite the adversity, old grandparents started a massive and intelligent system of cultural resistance, by submitting the laws, authorities and institutions to corruption.[2] Indeed, the project of creating the New Spain, from the Anahuac remains, never was fully complied, because of the corruption in which they lived.
"This is how the corrupt manner in which the colonial order was implemented, both among the spaniards as against the indians, allowed the permanent non-consolidation of the new civilization project. The spaniards themselves corrupted law, institutions and authority; this somehow allowed the survival of indigenous culture, whom implemented an elaborate and complex resistance strategy, which had two major aspects. The first was to try to preserve "disguised or camouflaged", the most important values of their ancestral culture in the new colonial order; and the second was corrupting as much as they could laws, institutions and authorities of their oppressors, knowing that it was the only means at their disposal to deal with the spaniards, and sabotage the construction of the new Spain project, where they had no place." (Guillermo Marín. 2001)
The colonial period, far from living peace with resignation, it was a rough adaptation of people who had lived in sovereign freedom for thousands of years, passing through a solid family education and a scrupulous and rigid social structure; with respected and ancient moral, social, ethical and religious standards, with ancient laws, with solvent institutions and honest authorities they recognized and accepted; to a new reality, in which invaded and defeated peoples, did not have any rights. Their laws, institutions and authorities were brutally destroyed and dismantled; to replace them the invader imposed those useful for exploitation. During the last five hundred years, first by indigenous and then mestizos have created, recreated and maintained a wide and complex "culture of resistance". As Dr. Guillermo Bonfil Batalla would say, "Incorruptible in their own spaces and extremely corrupt in external cultural spaces". Or, as mexicans accept while not accepting —colonizing impositions—, and as the popular saying goes, “Yes, but no”.
"Thus, the formation of the New Spain society was a tortuous process, conflicting, with multiple tests, experiments and failures. It was the result of theologians and jurists controversies on the nature of "the righteous titles" of the King to the Indies domination; disagreements and struggles between colonials, religious and civil servants; on the need for spanish institutions to adapt to the new environment. And above all, of the practical difficulties to govern and control a large indigenous population which, although defeated, had not been assimilated and often featured a much more effective resistance of what might be expected, clinging to their land, government forms, beliefs and customs." (Felipe Castro. 1996)
The colonial period represents a real holocaust to indigenous communities. The history of the permanent rebellions was not accurately recorded in the "official history". However, each town and in various forms, maintained different resistance tactics, because despite the same cultural matrix of the defeated, they did not operate with hegemony.
"Just as not all ethnic groups reacted uniformly before subjugation, inside each there were different answers... such as fleeing to refuge areas, temporary or permanent migration, re-fold in the communal space, the use of the relative advantages provided by the spanish legal system, banditry and tumult... All were variants of a common purpose: recovering from the brutal conquest shock, survive, maintaining some autonomy, rebuild their identity... The spaniards showed a hegemony that went beyond purely material ambition; for them, indians subjugation was an objective in itself... At the same time, the indigenous renounced to the more visible external aspects and therefore more exposure of their culture. They folded within each community, trying to minimize spaniard contact, they tried to hide their internal life from their inquisitive eyes, delegated the collective representation of their interests and the thorny problem of dealing with the menacing external powers to the reduced group of officers of the republic... Altogether, people developed their own version of "I obey but do not comply": submission and respect to civil or ecclesiastical authorities was almost as large as the lack of actual enforcement of their orders. Marcello Carmagnani notes with relevance that to speak of "passive resistance" unclearly summarizes this daily struggle, which focused on seemingly minor issues but which pointed towards the reconstruction of their ethnic identity, and within this process rework and project the future to a common heritage, a new culture, different from the prehispanic but by no means less Indian than the preceding."
"The Spaniards showed a hegemonic will that went beyond the purely material ambition; for them, subjugation of the Indians was an objective in itself."
"All (revolts) were variants of a same purpose: overcome the brutal commotion provoked by the conquest, survive, maintaining some autonomy, rebuild their identity." (Felipe Castro. 1996)
The spanish domination during the colony was overwhelming and absolute, reaching so inhumane extremes, which only demonstrate the spiritual poverty of the spanish who carried out the invasion. By the end of the colonial period, it is estimated that the New Spain approximately had six million people, of these, according to the 1793 census there were eight thousand peninsular Spanish, who controlled the political, economic and social power of the entire population.
The three hundred colonial years were a true hell for the invaded peoples. All their culture, knowledge and millenary history, became demonic representations. In practice they did not have rights under the law of the colonizer. Their place in the new order was of slaves and primitive beings, in permanent suspicion and mistrust; given that the indigenous culture always represented to the spaniards, in addition to backwards, a link with the evil and the devil.
"The vitality of the old cultural substrate is present in the practices that anthropologists have called syncretism. This revitalization of the ancient culture sought to incorporate it in the present through the procedure of covering up with a christian varnish that allowed its acceptance in the dominant society." (Enrique Florescano. 1987)
However, by the 18th century the creoles started an awareness of "la patria", to counter position the gachupines.[3] The unrest that arose in the middle of the 16th century between the sons of the conquerors born in Mexico (creoles) and the spaniards arriving from overseas to "make America" and that later took Francisco Javier Clavijero (1731-1787) as the first "mexican-creole" historian who begins to claim the New Spain should be for creoles. Clavijero wrote "The Ancient history of Mexico", but unlike the missionaries and conquerors, Clavijero begins giving to the ancient Anahuac history a belonging to the rebel spirit that was brewing among the New Spain creoles. He wrote "A history of Mexico written by a Mexican" in the book dedication.
"To that set of values and integrating symbols, the creoles of the 18th century added the idea that the country had a distant past, a past that when assumed by them ceased to be only indian and became creole and mexican.
Thus, by integrating the remote antiquity to the patria notion, the creoles expropriated the indigenous peoples of their own past and made it a prestigious antecedent of the creole patria. The creole patria now had a noble and ancient past, of a present unified by cultural values and shared religious symbols, and could therefore legitimately claim the right to govern their future". (Enrique Florescano. 1987)
In the project of building "The New Spain", the natives only were allowed to provide workmanship and their natural resources for free; the ideas were totally imported from Europe. Indigenous peoples were sentenced to lose their languages, their historical memory, their knowledge, their physical and social spaces and of course their religion, and by the 18th century the creoles even began expropriating their ancient history. They had to cease being what they were for centuries, to accept and be submissive slaves to colonists. The project was literally disappearing all vestige of the ancient native civilization. However, it was not so. The millenary Anahuac civilization tree was torn down by the colonizer with the language axe. But the root was kept under Mother earth, it kept alive the piece of trunk which stubbornly remained. And from the deepest life came with impetuous force and the trunk flourished. The Anahuac civilization did not die and survived colony.
- ↑ Judicial procedure of castillian and Indian law, which consisted in that at the end of the performance of a public official, he was subject to a review of his work, and all the charges against him were heard.
- ↑ See: "corruption in Mexico, as a cultural resistance strategy". Guillermo Marín. INLUSA. Oaxaca. México. 2001
- ↑ In the colonial caste system of Spanish America, a peninsular was a Spanish-born Spaniard or mainland Spaniard residing in the New World, as opposed to a person of full Spanish descent born in the Americas or Philippines (known as creole or criollos). The word "peninsular" makes reference to the Iberian Peninsula where Spain is located.