98 • The deaTh of azTec TenochTiTLan, The Life of mexico ciTy
concLusion
This chapter has taken stock of the extraordinary events
unfolding in the two decades after the Conquest, as the
once-evacuated island was repopulated and its urban
rhythms reestablished. Other histories of the city have
told of the actions of the group of Spaniards resident in
the city’s center, but I have focused on the presence of the
indigenous rulers in the city, arguing for their importance in
getting the city up and running during this time. Key to the
city’s success was the functioning of its markets, particularly
the great Tianguis of Mexico that was reestablished in the
island’s southwest corner, allowing the city once known as
Tenochtitlan to reclaim its position as a market hub.
While the reclaimed market was an indigenous bulwark,
other spaces of the city were being claimed, and marked,
by the Spanish conquistadores who lived in the city center.
Most important was the feast of San Hipólito, marking the
surrender of Cuauhtemoc and the fall of Tenochtitlan as
an indigenous city. Spanish-led processions out from the
Plaza Mayor followed the city’s main causeway, formerly
the main processional axis of the Mexica city. Practices
give meaning to spaces, and with this yearly commemora-
tion, the causeway that had once been the roadway upon
which victorious Mexica armies returned home was now
the route upon which Spanish conquistadores celebrated
their military triumph.
Names were one vehicle for conveying the presence of
the new Spanish ruling class in the city, but they were also
a way of remembering its complicated past. In Sahagún’s
psalm quoted above, the conquered space is denoted “New
Spain,” showing us that naming could also offer the pos-
sibility of introducing an idealized landscape onto the for-
eign ground. However, the early Spanish residents were
not the only dreamers. This task of conceiving a new repre-
sentation of the space of the principal city of a country now
called “New Spain” fell also to the indigenous nobility, and
in the next chapter we will look at their role in imagining
the city.