252 UNIT 2 COLONIAL MESOAMERICA
creating a lucrative export industry. But in 1553, the town council of Tlaxcala met to
discuss the negative impact of this industry on local food supplies and local morals. The
notaries recorded the discussion:Everyone does nothing but take care of cochineal cactus; no longer is care taken that
maize and other edibles are planted. For food—maize, chilis, and beans—and other
things that people need were once not expensive in Tlaxcala. It is because of this (neglect),
the cabildo members considered, that all the foods are becoming expensive. The owners
of cochineal cactus merely buy maize, chilis, etc., and are very occupied only with their
cochineal, by which their money, cacao beans, and cloth are acquired. They no longer
want to cultivate their fields, but idly neglect them. Because of this, now many fields are
going to grass, and famine truly impends. Things are no longer as they were long ago, for
the cochineal cactus is making people lazy. And it is excessive how sins are committed
against our Lord God. These cochineal owners devote themselves to their cochineal on
Sundays and holy days; no longer do they go to church to hear mass as the holy church
commands us, but look only to getting their sustenance and their cacao, which makes
them proud. And then later they buy pulque and then get drunk.... And he who be-
longed to someone no longer respects whoever was his lord and master, because he is
seen to have gold and cacao. This makes them proud and swells them up, whereby it is
fully evident that they esteem themselves through wealth. (Lockhart, Berdan, and An-
derson 1986:81)The councilmen decided to ask the viceroy to let them limit the number of
cochineal-producing plants any one person would be allowed to keep. Communi-
ties also faced a crisis when the local priest turned out to be a predator. This was the
case in Jalostotitlan, northeast of Zacatecas, in 1611, when Juan Vincente, a town of-
ficial, petitioned for the removal of the priest, Francisco Muñoz. Here are just a few
of the abuses he described:Three times he has given me blows and knocked me down, and I fainted. And he broke
my staff into pieces there in the church, in the sacristy... and I said to him: Father, why
are you beating me, you have broken my staff into bits. Then he said, Yes, I beat you and
splintered your staff, and I will break your whole head.... Another time there was a boy, a sacristan, eight years old; he whipped him very
severely, he stripped off much of his skin, and he fainted. He lay in bed for a week; when
he got up, then he ran away.
... Once my daughter Catalina Juana went there to the church in the evening to
sweep, and there in the church our father seized her and wanted to have her. She would
not let him, and there inside the church he beat her.
... And also, he does not teach us the divine words, the sermon, but only hates us
and mistreats us constantly. When the vicar-general wrote him, saying: Console the com-
moners, for they are your children, as soon as he read it, he said: Why am I to console and
love them as my children? They are children of the devil, and I will mistreat them. (And-
erson, Berdan, and Lockhart 1976:167–173)
Although we don’t know the outcome of this case, you can see here how native
people used writing to defend themselves against mistreatment. Wills yield a wealth
of information: By seeing to whom people leave their property, we learn about fam-
ily structure, inheritance, and naming customs; by seeing what goods and land peo-
ple owned, we learn about their economic status, including class and gender