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In the last chapter, we looked at the way corporate iden-
tity was expressed in pictographic documents produced
within Mexico City in the 1550s and 1560s, which revealed
a growing tension between the city’s elites and commoners.
On one side, governing elites were struggling to hang on
to their wealth as well as some of the traditional preroga-
tives that their status once afforded them and their fami-
lies. On the other side, the vast number of indigenous city
residents—the painters and the sculptors, the mat makers
and the fishermen—were under increasing pressure not
only from their own lords, but also from the ever-growing
number of Spaniards in the colony for tribute goods and
labor. A particular threat came from members of the royal
government, who expected to be able to draw on and
benefit from native labor despite the frequent injunctions
issued by the Crown government in Spain. Not only would
the indigenous lords complain about the “personal services”
their communities were required to give to Spaniards, but
also the commoners would complain of unpaid debts to
them, like the 2,980 pesos the viceroy owed for five years’
delivery of fodder. 1 Adding to the fractious situation of
the 1550s and 1560s were the Crown’s ongoing attempts to
reform and rationalize tribute payments. The goal was not
only to help its own financial situation but also to protect
indigenous commoners from abuses by the powerful, be
they encomenderos (holders of grants of indigenous labor),
corregidores (Crown officials who oversaw regions about the
size of counties), or their own indigenous leaders. Within
Mexico City, the powerful classes with the potential to be
exploiters included the judges of the royal court and the
viceroy, members of their families and their dependents,
and indigenous elites and leaders of the mendicant orders.
Mexico City was not a corregimiento (under the control of a
corregidor), nor were its people held in encomienda, so these
powerful interests were not directly in play.
Operating within this competitive political environ-
ment, where their prerogatives were under attack from
above and below, the governors and ruling cabildo of
Mexico-Tenochtitlan had good reason for public asser-
tions of their relevance. They made themselves present to
city residents in a variety of ways, the most obvious being
through the vast array of public ceremonies that took place
in the city, during which rulers participated in the prac-
tices that shaped the city’s lived spaces as they had before
the Conquest. One set of practices explicitly linked to the
Spanish monarchy included the entradas, in which the
newly appointed viceroy was officially welcomed into the
city; the jura, or the taking of the oath of loyalty to a new
king; and the celebrations and mourning that took place
on the birth of a royal child, a royal marriage, or a royal
death. Another set was the religious celebrations, some in
honor of patron saints. Evidence from later periods shows
us the enduring importance of the feast days of the patron
saints of the parcialidades (San José, San Juan Bautista
and San Juan Evangelista, San Pedro and San Pablo, San
Sebastián, and the Virgen de la Asunción). Easter week
and Corpus Christi were also the cause for general celebra-
tions within Mexico-Tenochtitlan and across the city; the
feast of San Hipólito drew the indigenous community out
to the Tacuba causeway on August 12th and 13th. But of all