99While the island that Mexico City occupied was one space,
its peoples lived under overlapping political jurisdictions,
whose roles and powers shifted over the course of the
sixteenth century. The Spanish cabildo, discussed in the
last chapter, claimed domain over the central area and had
jurisdiction over its Spanish residents, although it aspired
to much more; surrounding it were the peoples and ter-
ritories of the four parts, or parcialidades, that together
were called Mexico-Tenochtitlan; to the north was San-
tiago Tlatelolco (see figure 4.2). All three centers boasted
the same nexus of commerce, governance, education, and
worship. (For the purposes of clarity, I’ll refer to the two
indigenous zones as Mexico-Tenochtitlan and Santiago
Tlatelolco; I will refer to the larger urban constellation as
Mexico City. Further nuances of the names for the city will
be explored in chapter 7.) Both Santiago Tlatelolco and
Mexico-Tenochtitlan had historic roots as pre-Hispanic
altepeme, and both were products of strategic alliances
between indigenous governors and the Franciscans.
As we saw in the last chapter, key in the city’s post-
Conquest reestablishment were the indigenous rulers who
headed the indigenous cabildo of Mexico-Tenochtitlan and
bore the title of “gobernador.” Many of the gobernadores
who followed don Juan Velázquez as ruler of the indig-
enous city, as seen in the genealogy in figure 4.7, were
members of the Mexica royal house, and while their pre-
Hispanic forebears once ruled an entire empire from their
urban seat, after the Conquest they would move in a more
restricted orbit around the city. In many histories of the
city, they are barely mentioned, but as we saw, they played
a crucial role in rebuilding the indigenous-majority city.
Continuing with construction projects like the ones initi-
ated by Tlacotzin in 1522–1525, these rulers would build
their government building (tecpan) near the Franciscan
convent by the beginning of the 1540s; adjacent to it would
be the Tianguis of Mexico, refounded in 1533 and occu-
pying an expanse even larger than the Plaza Mayor itself.
Although the office these rulers held was no longer that
of the all-powerful huei tlatoani who had ruled the larger
pre-Hispanic empire, as newly consecrated gobernadores
they enjoyed considerable material benefits in the form of
tribute goods still delivered to them by the city’s indigenous
population, which, following pre-Hispanic custom, were
a repayment for their guardianship of the altepetl. But to
focus only on the material trappings that the governorship
brought these elites is to miss another powerful motiva-
tion for them to take on a role in the tumultuous post-
Conquest period. Drawn from the ranks of the traditional
ruling class, the men who would come to lead the city were
educated and politically astute, their intellectual flexibility
signaled by their ability to accommodate Spanish demands,
particularly the all-important conversion to Christianity.
It was they who would oversee the creation of a stable and
productive social order in the wake of the trauma of battle.
This was the great challenge that history had given to them.
So what was their vision of the city? And how did it
materialize in the lived spaces of Mexico-Tenochtitlan?
The actions of Tlacotzin in re-creating the great tianguis
show evidence of conservative leadership with an added
dose of self-interest, but records of his short-lived reign are