HAHR’s final issue of 2008 examines the complex interactions between Spanish colonial rule and local responses to imperial dictates. While state and church officials sought to implement crown policy, indigenous and creole elites and commoners pursued their own goals and objectives. The result was unexpected conflicts, and equally unexpected alliances, that propelled colonial societies in new and unforeseen directions.
Patricia Lopes Don considers the case of Don Carlos Ometochtli Chichimecateuchtli (1505? – 1539), a member of the Nahua nobility who during the last year of his life served briefly as indigenous ruler (tlahtoani) of Texcoco. Within months of assuming power, Don Carlos was brought before the Inquisition on charges of heresy, bigamy, and idolatry, and put to death. Lopes Don explains his fall from power as not simply the outcome of his rejection of Catholic orthodoxy. Don Carlos was also the victim both of power struggles among...
