waTeR and aLTePeTL in The LaTe sixTeenTh-cenTuRy ciTy • 199aquatic lifeline was a failure. While Gerónimo López, then
the cabildo’s obrero mayor, attempted to reignite support
(and funds) for the project at the end of 1573, he failed
to do so. 41
So when Valeriano and the other indigenous officials
entered the cabildo room, their Spanish peers had just paid
for two similar projects and witnessed the abandonment of
one, the Acuecuexco/Churubusco aqueduct, and the col-
lapse of the other, the Santa Fe aqueduct. In light of these
failures, Valeriano’s proposal was an audacious one—and
perhaps even an insulting one to the cabildo’s members,
who had spent the last decade putting time and money
into water projects that did nothing to mitigate the city’s
freshwater crisis. It was certainly unwelcome: this canal
would draw on water from the already stressed supplies
of Chapultepec and deliver it to a traditionally indigenous
neighborhood; moreover, the cabildo’s contribution was to
be the valuable and limited commodity of lime. The cost
of lime was an enormous part of any building project; the
greatest percentage of the 28,000 or so pesos that went to
the failed Santa Fe aqueduct was spent on lime. In 1565, the
limited quantities of lime available meant that during the
building of the Churubusco cistern, the then obrero mayor,
Francisco Mérida de Molina, had to ask to divert lime from
the construction of the Cathedral in order to use it on the
waterworks. 42 Thus, supplying lime to this indigenous
project would hamstring the cabildo’s own chosen infra-
structure work. But the viceroy seems to have thrown his
weight behind it; in fact, the decision to issue a real cédula
(royal command) to allow the sisa to be spent on getting
water to the city in 1573 coincided with the appointment
of Valeriano, and the Viceroy’s intention may have been
to back an indigenous project, so for the cabildo to vote it
down would have been out of the question. 43
indigenous knowLedge
and The dike sysTem
If numerous Spanish engineers had failed, not once but
twice, in the quest to bring more water into the city, why
did Valeriano and the native cabildo think they could suc-
ceed? Was this a foolhardy quest, given the difficulties of
moving water across the valley? One might assume that the
rupture of the Conquest and the diminishment of indig-
enous power in the city would have led to the erosion of
technological knowledge, but there is abundant evidence
of the continuing role that indigenous experts played in
managing the valley’s water system, although many of the
great disruptions were beyond their ability to control.
A case in point is the 1555 project to rebuild the Ahuit-
zotl dike (a dike that subsequently took on the name “San
Lázaro dike” because of the church and hospital for lepers
rebuilt on the east side of the city in the 1570s) under Vice-
roy Luis de Velasco. 44 As we have seen, in the first decade
or two after the Conquest, lake levels around the city were
extremely low. One reason was that Cortés ruptured the
Nezahualcoyotl dike in order to get his brigantines close to
the city for his attack; another, a general drought. But silt,
deforestation, and construction of new causeways within
the laguna (which impeded the flow of water) were pro-
ceeding apace. The city’s first great flood crisis hit in the
wake of the 1555 rainy season, when the city experienced
flooding so severe that the Spanish cabildo complained in
October that the city was almost underwater. Viceroy Luis
de Velasco was compelled to move quickly. Velasco called
on his own advisors as well as the indigenous nobility
when the surging waters posed a threat to the city, asking
them for their opinions. In October or November of 1555,
the lords of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Tacuba, and Tetzcoco
gathered together, as they had done as heads of the pre-
Hispanic Triple Alliance in consecrations and feasting
and as they continued to do in the colonial period and as
they would do in the great celebration of the oath of alle-
giance of 1557, described in chapter 8. Santiago Tlatelolco,
which had been under the control of Tenochtitlan before
the Conquest, had a seat at the table as well. They advised
that the building of a dike like the one that had existed
before would protect the city. In recalling the meeting
some months later, Juan Aquiaguacatl, a noble from the
parcialidad of San Pablo, said, “The aforementioned lords
[of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Santiago Tlatelolco, Tacuba, and
Tetzcoco] came together and spoke together about it and
this witness was one of them and they resolved after having
spoken, that the best and fastest solution would be to build
the dike, which used to exist, for protection from the lake
and they gave this reply to his Excellency the Viceroy.” 45 At
the end of the consultation process, the viceroy decided to
follow the lords’ advice and rebuild the old Ahuitzotl dike
that had run along the eastern perimeter of the city, stretch-
ing from the causeway of Tepeyacac to that of Ixtapalapa,
a dike whose maintenance had been neglected since the
Conquest—note how Juan Aquiaguacatl says that “it
used to exist, for protection” (italics mine). Its neglect was
entirely understandable, as falling lake levels made it seem