Indian communities in late colonial, insurgent and early republican Mexico
For discussion
1. Why were Indian riots and rebellions so local and so loyal during the 18th-century Mexico ?
2. Why and how did the 1712 rebellion in
3. Were Indian communities incapable of sharing or relating to the ideas of the Creole directorate of the insurrection ?
4. To what extent did the Totonac insurgents of Papantla become “Mexicans” between 1810 and 1821 ?
5. Were Indian communities in Guerrero and Papantla consciously and doctrinally “federalist” or were their interests and world view entirely parochial ? (see Hernández Jaime’s critique of Guardino’s concept of “popular federalism”)
Readings for 1+2
18th C Indian riots & rebellions
William Taylor, Drinking, Homicide and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (Stanford, 1979) (Ch4 & Conclusion, 113-170), or see same in William Taylor “Patterns and Variety in Mexican Village Uprisings” in John Kicza ed. The Indian in Latin American History Ch7, 157-189
Useful for the religious background to Indian unrest: David Brading, “Images and Prophets: Indian religion and the Spanish Conquest”, in , Ouweneel, Arij, and Simon Miller eds., The Indian Community of Colonial Mexico Fifteen Essays on Land Tenure, Corporate Organisations, Ideology and Village Politics.
Michael Ducey, A Nation of Villages Riot and Rebellion in the Mexican Huasteca, 1750-1850 2004, (Chs.1&2)
Taylor, William, ‘Conflict and Balance in District Politics: Tecali and the Sierra Norte de Puebla in the 18th Century’ in Arij Ouweneel and Simon Miller, eds., The Indian Community of Colonial Mexico.
Tzteltal (Highland Maya) rebellion of 1712
Gosner, Kevin, “Religion and Rebellion in Colonial Chiapas”, in Susan Schroeder (ed.) Native Resistance and the Pax Colonial in New Spain pp.47-66
Gosner, Kevin, Soldiers of the Virgin The Moral Economy of a Colonial Maya Rebellion especially Ch. 6 "The Highlands in Revolt".
Robert Wasserstrom, Robert, "Ethnic Violence and Indigenous Protest: the Tzeltal (Maya) Rebellion of 1712", Journal of Latin American Studies 12, 1980, 1-19.
Klein, Herbert, "Peasant Communities in Revolt: The Tzeltal Republic of 1712," Pacific Historical Review 35, 1966, 247-263
Quisteil Rebellion (lowland Maya) of 1761
Robert Patch, “Culture, Community and ‘Rebellion’ in the Yucatec Maya Uprising of
Robert Patch, Maya Revolt and Revolution in the 18th C London and
Readings for 3+4
Indians and the insurgency
For a now much challenged interpretation of the divergence between elite and popular ideologies during the wars of Independence: Eric Van Young, ‘The Raw and the Cooked: Elite and Popular Ideology in Mexico, 1800-
See also Eric Van Young, “Revolution and Imagined Communities in Mexico, 1910-
Michael Ducey, A Nation of Villages Riot and Rebellion in the Mexican Huasteca, 1750-1850 Ch.on wars of Independence, or see his article, Michael Ducey, “Village, Nation, and Constitution: Insurgent Politics in Papantla, Veracruz, 1810-
Peter Guardino, Peasants, Politics, and the Formation of Mexico’s National State Guerrero, 1800-1857 Ch on wars of Independence
Readings for 5
Popular Federalism in Papantla and Guerrero
Michael Ducey, A Nation of Villages Chs. 5 &6
Peter Guardino, "Barbarism or Republican Law. Guerrero's Peasants and National Politics, 1820-
Peter Guardino, Peasants, Politics, and the Formation of Mexico’s National State , 81-219
For an interesting persuasive critique of Peter Guardino’s “popular federalism” interpretation, Jesús Hernández Jaimes, “Actores indios y estado nacional: las rebeliones indígenas en el sur de México, 1842-
Michael Costeloe, “Mariano Arizcorreta and Peasant Unrest in the State of Mexico,