Contact strategies: histories of native autonomy in Brazil

Abstract

style of record-keeping around the time he became governor, with his posterity continuing and strengthening this preference. Throughout the book, the De la Cruz family emphasizes their role in supporting the community—particularly financially—thus continuing responsibilities and duties bestowed upon Indigenous rulers long before Spanish contact. Indeed, the book’s preservation within the family generation after generation speaks to the importance the family gave to remembering the past, the community, and their role in sustaining it. The other four documents—a tribute notebook and parish records and two wills pertaining to the family—all complement each other to tell a story of Indigenous life in Tepemaxalco and the surrounding region, and how ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’ (43). Indeed, although Spanish colonialism brought livestock, Catholicism, and new tribute quotas, maize farming continued its importance; the local community took ownership of the church, its finances, adornment, and impact, with individuals determining which saints became treasured and honored household images; and the local elite shouldered the responsibility to ensure tribute quotas were met while fulfilling their traditional reciprocal roles, even making up any shortage in the accounts. In the end, the documents illustrate how Spanish government, society, economy, and religion came to the Toluca Valley, and how the De la Cruz family and others engaged such change through traditional avenues that allowed for adaptation not capitulation. Although the book offers myriad insights from gender roles to old rivalries between communities, one that leaps from the pages is the support and devotion the De la Cruz family gave the local church. In fact, don Pedro was an organist, and over the generations he and his descendants gave thousands of pesos in financial donations to the church, enabling not only upkeep and repairs, but also new construction and the purchase of various items that often favored musical instruments, including an organ and a music score. Indigenous agency shines throughout the work while the translations allow an English-reading audience access to the everyday affairs of Tepemaxalco. Moreover, the authors present their insights and analysis in a warm and welcoming prose that invites readers read on as they come to understand how the De la Cruz family helped ‘preserve traditions and buildings that remain at the core of the identity of the place still today’ (136).