PLace-names in mexico-TenochTiTLan • 157in the same manner as Huanitzin, wearing the turquoise
miter and turquoise cloak (see figure 5.1); in the Beinecke
Map, he appears, like Huanitzin, with a turquoise miter
and seated on the high-backed tepotzoicpalli (see figure 5.2).
Also on the Codex Aubin page is the sign of what would be
the greatest challenge of Tehuetzquititzin’s rule: the terrible
hemorrhagic fever epidemic, a disease known as cocoliztli
that swept through New Spain in 1545–1548, followed by
a lesser epidemic in 1550 of what was perhaps mumps. 35
The scale of death leaves its traces in the account of a judge
of the audiencia, Alonso de Zorita, who served from 1556
to 1566, and who looked back on this period and recorded
that “ten, fifteen, twenty years ago there were fewer farms,
and there were many more Indians. . . . [Today] there is
barely one third as many Indians.” 36 Modern accounts esti-
mate that as much as 80 percent of the native population
died in the cocoliztli epidemic; in comparison, the Black
Death in Europe killed 50 percent of the population, so “in
absolute and relative terms the 1545 epidemic was one of
the worst demographic catastrophes in human history.” 37
In its wake, a food crisis erupted in Mexico City because
so few were alive or well enough to work in the fields, and
the self-interested response of the Spanish cabildo was to
demand that more indigenous commoners be compelled to
plant wheat and maize. 38
The plagues exacerbated the trends of the extractive
economy that had been created in the wake of the Con-
quest, where Spanish conquistadores and later arrivals
looked to indigenous labor, granted to the Spaniards via
encomiendas, to support themselves and their large house-
holds, as well as their business ventures. 39 Their interests
were in direct conflict with those of native elites, like
Tehuetz quititzin and other members of the native cabildo,
for whom being a noble meant being wealthy. These native
elites depended upon the classes beneath them to support
their households and to maintain their status and did so
by requiring tribute from the peasants who worked lands
they held. Within Mexico City, native elites’ access to indig-
enous labor was curtailed even more sharply as they lost
properties and the tenant labor they once held outside of
the city to the Crown or encomenderos, who held Crown
grants of indigenous labor. Within the city, they had to
compete with the labor demands made by religious orders
(who relied on free indigenous labor in all their construc-
tion) and repartimientos (temporary grants of labor) given
to the viceroy and the audiencia.
Tehuetzquititzin had to contend not only with
epidemics and their aftermath in the late 1540s, but also
with the viceregal government, which was pushed by the
royal Crown for even more revenues and began to aggres-
sively curtail the prerogatives of all indigenous nobility by
changing the pre-Hispanic tributary economy. Before the
Conquest, commoners delivered maize or other goods,
which were used, in part, to support rulers and their fami-
lies; they also had labor obligations, often for works of ben-
efit to the community. Land was also a key resource: noble
families held lands that were worked for their benefit, and
certain lands were set aside for the benefit of officehold-
ers. But land seizures, first by conquistadores and later
by the royal government, eroded the amount of tributary
lands that supported elites (patrimonial lands) and native
officeholders (señorial lands). 40 By midcentury, the royal
government had put rulers in the valley on a salary, thereby
cutting the amount that they were entitled to receive from
the general tribute collection. At the same time, they cur-
tailed the labor services that commoners would tradition-
ally supply indigenous rulers. 41
One indication that the indigenous cabildo under
the leadership of Tehuetzquititzin was hard-pressed for
resources is their decision in the late 1540s to erect a build-
ing with an arcade in the Tianguis of Mexico, a structure
that would define its northeast corner. In all likelihood,
they were envisioning this public work as a building whose
income would benefit their community coffers, following
the practice of the Spanish cabildo to construct storefronts
on land it owned adjacent to the plazas of the city and rent
them out; adding to the value were the arcaded spaces in
front, another source of rental income. 42 The indigenous
cabildo undoubtedly recognized the potential for profit if
it constructed buildings of its own on the perimeter of the
Tianguis of Mexico. But it lacked the necessary funds for
the building and joined with the powerful dealmaker and
judge of the audiencia Lorenzo de Tejada (seated 1546–
1553) to build these shops with their sheltering arcade,
with Tejada advancing the capital for the venture. 43 When
the indigenous cabildo could not raise the money to repay
him for the building, Tehuetzquititzin ceded the land as
repayment, and the building was thenceforth known as the
“Portales de Tejada.” 44 Tehuetzquititzin’s move is a reveal-
ing one, in that he and the native cabildo believed that it was
possible to alienate the tianguis land to repay a communal
debt. In other words, the land of the tianguis was no dif-
ferent than other lands within the parcialidad, where the
native government was able, like its Spanish counterpart, to