City Indians in Spain's American Empire

This book brings together the pioneering work of scholars of urban Indians in colonial Latin America. An important but understudied segment of colonial society, urban Indians composed a majority of the population of Spanish America's most important cities. The geographic range, chronological scope, and thematic content of urban native studies is addressed by examining such topics as the role of natives in settling frontier regions, inter-ethnic relations, notaries and chroniclers, and the continuation of indigenous governance. In spanning the entirety of the colonial period, the persistence and the creation of urban Indian identities and their contributions to society are brought to the fore. Scholarly contributions include Susan Schroeder's "Whither Tenochtitlan? Chimalpahin and Mexico City, 1593-1631" and David Cahill's "Urban Mosaic: Indigenous Ethnicities in Colonial Cuzco." The book opens with commentary by John K. Chance, a pioneer scholar of urban Indians in Latin America and au