CHAPTER 5 THE COLONIAL PERIOD IN MESOAMERICA 211In a sense, the native people used these forms of ritual kinship, which were ap-
proved by the Church, to compensate for the loss of their more traditional patterns
of extended kinship ties. Compadrazgorelationships were marked by a great deal of
formality and respect, and thus provided a context in which customs of polite be-
havior and formal speech-making, developed to the status of a fine art in precon-
quest times, could continue to flourish.
Economy
The economic activities that members of native communities engaged in varied
tremendously across colonial Mesoamerica, reflecting both the traditional differ-
ences that had existed at the time of the Spanish invasion and the variable influence
of Spanish interference in local affairs. At one end of the spectrum are the more iso-
lated, usually highland communities, where subsistence agriculture—little changed
from the pre-Columbian past—remained the dominant activity of most residents. At
the other extreme are communities whose economies were transformed because
they were located near Spanish population centers or in areas where Spanish enter-
prises came to dominate the local economy. In these cases, the introduction of new
crops and new technologies, together with a foreign work ethic—reliance on wage
labor—thoroughly disrupted traditional economic relations. The experience of most
native communities, of course, lies somewhere between these two extremes.
The traditional agricultural system, with its reliance on the cultivation of maize
and other indigenous crops, prevailed in many communities throughout the Colo-
nial period, but it was quickly supplemented with the introduction and ready ac-
ceptance by the natives of European fruits and vegetables. Similarly, European
animals, particularly chickens, pigs, and goats, were quickly adopted by Indian fam-
ilies. In some areas simple European agricultural technology, such as the ox-driven
plow, became essential to native agriculture.
The repartimientosystem of forced labor was clearly a disruptive influence within
the Indian communities, but the concept of what was essentially a labor tax was not
a foreign one for Mesoamerican Indians. As with tribute, communities had been
compelled to provide labor to dominant powers, whether they be regional capitals
or the powerful Aztec or K’iche’ empires, in pre-Columbian times. It does seem likely,
however, that the levels of forced labor under the Spaniards increased and were
much more burdensome, particularly in light of the disastrous population decline
that reduced the size of the potential labor force so precipitously. The decline of the
repartimientosystem cleared the way for what was a truly new form of economic rela-
tionship: wage labor.
The idea of selling one’s labor for money must have seemed strange to most
Mesoamerican natives when it was first introduced. We do not know what proportion
of the Indians participated in this system by the close of the Colonial period, but
surely a large number were compelled to work for others at one time or another.
Many who had managed to survive and support families by growing enough food
for their own sustenance found the situation increasingly difficult in the eighteenth
century. By the mid–eighteenth century, communities that had paid tribute for over
200 years in the goods they produced were now forced to pay tribute in money. At