Book/Printed Material Marquesado del Valle Codex. Códice del Marquesado del Valle
About this Item
Title
- Marquesado del Valle Codex.
Other Title
- Códice del Marquesado del Valle
Summary
- This exceptionally valuable file contains 28 separate petitions from different leaders and towns of the Marquesado del Valle, protesting seizures of lands and sugar mills by Hernán Cortés, the first marquess. The Marquesado comprised the present-day Mexican state of Morelos as well as parts of the states of Puebla, Oaxaca, and Mexico. The great sugar plantations that Cortés created were organized by renting, buying, or seizing gardens, fields, and other lands that had belonged to the caciques (Indian nobles), towns, and districts since time immemorial. Throughout the 16th century, the indigenous and European economies functioned alongside each other. Indians tried to retain what was theirs while the Spaniards were forcefully expanding their holdings. The petitions, principally concerning agriculture, were written in the middle of the 16th century. They generally contain a text in Náhuatl that explains the nature of the complaint and a rough drawing or map made by tlacuilos (Indian painters). Full of symbolism, information, and indigenous knowledge, these drawings indicate ownership of land parcels; show place names with topographic glyphs; show the size of parcels according to Mesoamerican calculations; indicate the type of production and the quantities; and give the names of ruling chiefs and other assorted facts. These documents provide important detail about the geography of vast zones of central Mexico at the beginning of the viceregal period, a time when the region was undergoing rapid transformation. Currently, the Marquesado del Valle Codex is in the Archivo General de la Nación de México, Record Group Hospital de Jesús, volume 487, bundle 276.
Names
- Indian nobles and towns of the Marquesado del Valle Creator.
Created / Published
- [place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], [1550 to 1600]
Headings
- - Mexico--México
- - Mexico--Morelos
- - Mexico--Oaxaca
- - Mexico--Puebla
- - 1550 to 1599
- - Codex
- - Cortés, Martín 1532-1589
- - Indians of Mexico
- - Indigenous peoples
- - Land tenure
- - Memory of the World
- - Mesoamerica
- - Petitions
- - Real property
- - Valle de Oaxaca (New Spain)
Notes
- - Title devised, in English, by Library staff.
- - Original resource extent: 28 single large-format pages with paintings and text in Nahuatl written in Latin characters. Also part of the Codex, two booklets (notebooks) totaling 102 pages.
- - Original resource at: General Archive of the Nation.
- - Content in Classical Nahuatl.
- - Description based on data extracted from World Digital Library, which may be extracted from partner institutions.
Medium
- 1 online resource.
Digital Id
Library of Congress Control Number
- 2021667804
Online Format
- compressed data
- image