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On June 28, 1575, an extraordinary event took place within
the main hall of the ayuntamiento building, which occupied
the south side of Mexico City’s main plaza. 1 That morning,
members of the Spanish cabildo, among them wealthy and
powerful citizens of this New World capital, had gathered
for their regular semiweekly meeting to discuss some of the
affairs of the city under their control: the organization of
festivals, particularly San Hipólito; the regulations of city
slaughterhouses; the cleaning and paving of streets. But
interrupting the normal course of affairs was a letter from
the viceroy, Martín Enríquez de Almanza (r. 1568–1580);
after it was read, into the large meeting hall walked some
unusual guests, men who rarely entered through these
portals. They were the leaders of the cabildo of Mexico-
Tenochtitlan, the indigenous government that controlled
the four parcialidades, that indigenous ring city of the
island. At their head was don Antonio de Valeriano, who
claimed descent from lineages of the great huei tlatoque of
the pre-Hispanic period, and he was flanked by the indig-
enous government’s two alcaldes, don Martín de la Cruz
and don Martín Hernández, along with a host of other
nobles and government officials, whose numbers likely
included the ten or so regidores representing the four par-
cialidades. These men rarely appeared in front of this body,
so it was a ceremonious occasion. To the untutored, their
dress would simply have marked them as members of the
república de indios, but to knowledgeable viewers it would
have been rich with symbols of their office. For most of
them, it almost certainly included the native tilmatl (cloak),
worn over their shoulders and knotted in front, made of
fine white cotton spun with rabbit hair or feathers, dyed
and patterned in some cases and embroidered with the
tenixyo design of brilliant cherry-red thread at its edge, one
of the signal markers of elite clothing (see figure 7.12).
Some of the members of the Spanish cabildo may have
known Valeriano; the viceroy certainly did, as this gover-
nor of Mexico-Tenochtitlan appealed directly to him in
managing the indigenous city’s affairs. Valeriano was well
known in other circles; he was a great favorite of the city’s
powerful Franciscans, had worked with Bernardino de
Sahagún on the creation of the Florentine Codex, and had
taught Nahuatl to Juan de Torquemada, whose chronicle
Monarchía indiana is still an indispensable source for Mexi-
can history. Gerónimo de Mendieta, the Franciscan who
was the careful observer of the festivals examined in the
last chapter, would speak of him highly, offering him as
an argument for the value of educating indigenous elites,
one of the results being that they proved better rulers:
“And of this we have a good example among us in don
Antonio Valeriano, the Indian governor of Mexico City,
who emerged [from Franciscan schools] with command
of Latin, logic and philosophy and he then followed those
priests who were his teachers, named above, in studying
grammar in the college [of Santa Cruz, housed in Santiago
Tlatelolco] for a number of years and taught young priests
in that monastery and after was elected to be the governor
of Mexico and he has ruled in that city a little less (I don’t
know if more) than thirty years, in all affairs that pertain
to the Indians and has met with great approval from the
viceroys and has been an example for the Spanish.” 2 In his