Not by sword but by pen: how Mexico's peoples fought colonization in court

[Judi Lynn]

An indigenous mural map of the Yucatán Peninsula and its towns, found at Chichén Itzá. UNAM

Using their own maps, indigenous groups used Spain's legal system to counter land grabs

By Rich Tenorio
Published on Monday, January 24, 2022

In colonial Mexico, when a Spanish settler sought to build a ranch near a former Aztec aqueduct, the local indigenous community feared that the livestock would pollute the water supply and a crisis emerged.

To defend their land, they turned to a resource increasingly used again today by indigenous people throughout colonial Mexico: maps of the territory in question.

Created by trained cartographers or tlacuiloque, these land-grant maps became a valuable document in court proceedings to determine whether land would be issued to a petitioner.

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Siguenza Map
The Sigüenza Map, an indigenous cartographic history of the migration of the Mexica from the mythical Aztlán to Tenochtitlán, believed by scholars to have been made in the 16th century. INAH

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“There was a very significant tradition of mapmaking in precolonial Mexico before the Spanish arrived,” Pulido Rull said, citing over 1,000 native maps, including from the colonial period. “Land-grant maps, the subject of my book, have not really been published before. Only a couple of books have been written [about them] before.”

More:
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/mexicolife/mexicos-peoples-fought-in-court/