This work expands and develops, with new information, findings discussed in the same author’s earlier work, The Mixtec Kings and Their People (1967). Spores has published in considerable depth on the archaeology and history of the Mixteca region of western Oaxaca, with particular reference to its most populous and productive zone, the Mixteca Alta. Although he pays substantial attention here to the pre-Columbian period, several chapters assess Mixtec relations with the Hispanic population during the colonial period. He frequently uses sources from regional archives in Oaxaca, from the Mexican National Archives, and from the Archive of the Indies in Seville. The maps are useful and the illustrations welcome. This book forms another part of the growing literature on the Oaxaca region.
The author describes his work as a “regional ethnohistory of the Mixteca Alta . . .” (p. 3), and begins with a discussion of the early settlement of the region, the development of agriculture and trade, and the emergence of an urban and stratified civilization. Particularly helpful are his remarks concerning the relationship between the Mixteca and the Valley of Oaxaca, on the one hand, and that between the region and Puebla and central Mexico, on the other. Further, Spores contributes to the discussion on the question of the population of the region at the time of the Spanish conquest. In this respect, he proposes that the population of the Valley of Nochixtlán, on the eve of the conquest, might well have been about 50,000. This encourages him to view the estimates presented by Sherburne F. Cook and Woodrow W. Borah (The Population of the Mixteca Alta, 1520-1960, 1968), who suggest a total of 700,000 for the region, as perhaps “somewhat exaggerated.” As a “more realistic estimate” (p. 96), Spores argues for a population of between 250,000 and 300,000 for the Mixteca Alta in 1520.
Historians concerned with how the social organization of Mexico altered from the pre-Columbian to the colonial period will derive benefit here from Spores’s analysis of Mixtec social stratification before and after the establishment of Spanish rule, particularly where ownership of land and distribution of labor are concerned. He stresses that, despite the great impact of the Spanish presence, “traditional patterns of social intercourse among native populations were not seriously altered” (p. 120). Labor-intensive agriculture or mining were not central aspects of the Mixteca economy in the colonial period, and no large-scale relocation of indigenous labor to plantations or haciendas occurred. The flexibility of colonial institutions helped to prevent outright rebellion or deterioration of group relations between Europeans and Indians. Conflicts tended to be horizontal, rather than between socially stratified groups. Finally, after a discussion of the impact of Christianity and a chapter on crime, Spores argues that the colonial experience helped to preserve many aspects of traditional Mixtec society, rather than the contrary.
The book’s weaknesses may lie in its scant attention to Hispanic commercial activities in the region and in its tendency to peter out by the time it reaches the latter half of the eighteenth century. Reference to the introduction of the intendant system, with its district subdelegations, is peremptory. In addition, no intimation at all is given as to how the Mixteca population might have behaved during the wars of independence, when Morelos’s forces arrived in the area.
