{"id":25424,"date":"2012-09-16T20:24:59","date_gmt":"2012-09-16T20:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=25424"},"modified":"2012-09-16T20:24:59","modified_gmt":"2012-09-16T20:24:59","slug":"indian-lords-hispanic-gentlemen-the-salazars-of-colonial-tlaxcala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=25424","title":{"rendered":"Indian Lords, Hispanic Gentlemen: The Salazars of Colonial Tlaxcala"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indian Lords, Hispanic Gentlemen: The Salazars of Colonial Tlaxcala<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Americas<\/a>
\nVolume 69, Number 1, July 2012<\/a>
\npages 1-36
\nDOI: 10.1353\/tam.2012.0060<\/a><\/p>\n

Peter B. Villella<\/a><\/strong>, Assistant Professor of History
\nUniversity of North Carolina, Greensboro<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1773, a Mexico City expert in gold embroidery named don Jos\u00e9 Mariano S\u00e1nchez de Salazar Zitlalpopoca petitioned for a license to operate his own shop and take on apprentices. As handling precious metals was politically and economically sensitive, such professions were by law exclusive, open only to those of proven character, standing, and reputation\u2014qualities understood to be inherited by blood. Thus, to establish his sufficiency for the license don Jos\u00e9 called forth witnesses to his family\u2019s honor, reputation, and good lineage.<\/p>\n

Genealogical and character investigations were common in the early modern Spanish world, part of the required process for those seeking access to elite institutions and associations. Among other indicators of high social status, aspirants often cited noble ancestors in Spain, both real and invented, as proof of their blood quality. Yet don Jos\u00e9 was not Spanish and could not credibly establish such a pedigree. Instead, he hired a scribe in the primarily Nahuatl<\/a>-speaking city of Tlaxcala<\/a>, east of Mexico City, to consult its noble registry (becerro<\/em>) and confirm that he was descended from don Bartolom\u00e9 Citlalpopoca, a Tlaxcalan<\/a> leader at the time of the Spaniards\u2019 arrival two and a half centuries earlier (Figure 1).<\/p>\n

The scribe also reported that subsequent generations of Salazars, up to and including don Jos\u00e9\u2019s own brother, had served honorably with the Tlaxcalan cabildo<\/em>, or municipal governing council. Finally, lest his indigenous origins raise suspicions among Spanish officials, the petitioner also submitted copies of royal decrees explicitly equating the legal status and rights of caciques, the hereditary lords in America\u2019s native communities, with those of Spain\u2019s hidalgos<\/a>, gentlemen who enjoyed the privileges of minor nobility. \u201cI am a cacique,\u201d don Jos\u00e9 concluded, and \u201ccaciques are . . . eligible for all the ecclesiastical and secular employments and dignities customarily conferred upon the hidalgos of Castile, and can participate in any communities that require nobility.\u201d Satisfied, the overseer confirmed that don Jos\u00e9 was indeed \u201ca cacique Indian of the Tlaxcaltecos,\u201d and, following a successful practical examination, the viceroy certified him as a master goldworker. Ironically, upon conferring his new rights, they required him to swear that he would never accept non-Spanish apprentices.<\/p>\n

Don Jos\u00e9 was not the first of his family to find success in a social and professional realm normally reserved for Spaniards and creoles (American-born Spaniards). Nor was he the first cacique to gain access to the privileges of Spanish hidalgos, which was not entirely unusual by the end of the eighteenth century. Yet the Salazars of Tlaxcala stand out, inasmuch as their participation in the elite institutions of New Spain<\/a> did not entirely replace the political offices they held and the historical identities they proclaimed as Tlaxcalan aristocrats. That is, they were not creoles boasting (as some did) of distant and mostly abstract cacica<\/a><\/em> great-grandmothers. Rather, they were both caciques and hidalgos, performing each role simultaneously: Nahua nobles living as Novohispanic<\/a> gentlemen, Tlaxcalan aristocrats wielding intellectual, political, and legal authority within the Spanish empire.<\/p>\n

The Salazars belonged to a handful of families in central Mexico that had managed to escape the general decline of the Mesoamerican<\/a> hereditary elite by the eighteenth century. The late-colonial plight of the indigenous nobility was such that in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indian Lords, Hispanic Gentlemen: The Salazars of Colonial Tlaxcala The Americas Volume 69, Number 1, July 2012 pages 1-36 DOI: 10.1353\/tam.2012.0060 Peter B. Villella, Assistant Professor of History University of North Carolina, Greensboro In 1773, a Mexico City expert in gold embroidery named don Jos\u00e9 Mariano S\u00e1nchez de Salazar Zitlalpopoca petitioned for a license to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,21,459,8,103],"tags":[11883,11882,7964,7965,5981],"class_list":["post-25424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-latincarib","category-history","category-media-archive","category-mexico","tag-jose-mariano-sanchez-de-salazar","tag-jose-mariano-sanchez-de-salazar-zitlalpopoca","tag-peter-b-villella","tag-peter-villella","tag-the-americas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}