Tangled Strands of Silk: Globalizing the Local in Early Modern San Miguel Achiutla, Oaxaca

Abstract

This article takes the community of San Miguel Achiutla, located in the Mixtec highlands of Oaxaca, as a case study through which to examine the complex involvements of Indigenous pueblos de indios of Mexico in the early modern dynamics of globalization. Drawing from both ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence, this analysis shows not only how residents of this community were affected by forces of globalization as they appropriated new goods and ideas from across the Pacific and Atlantic, but also how they played an active economic role in driving colonial expansion during the sixteenth century, particularly through the silk trade. In tracing these connections, we see how locally focused microhistories can shed light on aspects of early modern globalization that we might not otherwise attend to.