Coyoacan: Nahua-Spanish Relations in Central Mexico, 1519-1650. by Rebecca HornReview by: Barry SellThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Autumn, 1998), pp. 915-916Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2543761 .

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Book Reviews 915

ot a secret. No power exists in having a secret unless others comprehend that one possesses it. Baker points out that the "secret of the inefficacy of the English common law in the Irish kingdom, I argue, is both what the Viewv'knows' and what it'does not fail to reveal."' Spenser believed that the English common law in Ireland was ineffective and on the brink of col- lapse, that only the imposition of force could save it. Baker agrees with historian Ciaran Brady; yet he takes his argument one step further, and asserts that Spenser was fully aware of the implications of his treatise while constructing the text in a manner that would leave the readers (especially Elizabeth's Privy Council) confused about whether Spenser did indeed comprehend the implications of his text.The author claims that most English writers in the 1580s and 1590s desired a clear reform of policy in regard to Ireland, but that Spenser's trea- tise is unique in how it expresses its views: "Spenser determined to couch his allegations in a rhetoric that not only implicated, but was implicated in, the perplexities of the legal dis- course by which the queen's councillors hoped to rule Ireland."

Baker's third chapter concerns the political loyalties (or lack of same) of the poet Andrew Marvell. The author does not agree that Marvell was a political opportunist who changed sides when the government altered, but rather a "loyalist"-someone who owed his alle- giance to his sovereign while that leader was alive but who changed loyalty to whomever assumed power. Baker's chapter concerns the poet's "loyalism" and two poems that deal with the question of a British union. The author argues that Marvell's ideas about Britain are characteristically inconsistent. Baker believes that the "The Loyal Scot" (c. 1670) argues for a British union but that "An Horatian Ode" (1650) implies that the poet does not support it.

David Baker's book presents unique readings of works by three great Renaissance writers on the question of a British union. His study is well researched, and he wisely begins his chapters by informing the reader of the positions of previous scholars. Baker's book is an excellent source for scholars and students interested in literature and history regarding the relationship between England and her neighboring countries during the early modern period. Eric Sterling ......... Auburn University Montgomery

Coyoacan: Nahua-Spanish Relations in Central Mexico, 1519-1650. Rebecca Horn. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. 356 pp. $55.00.

This well-done study of a colonial Mexican city and its environs is specifically a contri- bution to the literature on early Latin America. Nonetheless, its overall theme of dynamic interaction between indigenous and intrusive peoples should be well appreciated by scholars of other peoples and areas of the same period.

Rebecca Horn looks at the Nahuas ("Aztecs") and Spaniards of Coyoacan, an altepeti (town, ethnic city-state) near Mexico City. The altepetl was the largest Nahua sociopolitical unit to survive conquest and colonization. Among the Nahuas, the Spanish fastened on this unit as the starting point for the early encomienda (grant of Indian tribute and labor) and the later repartimiento (labor draft of Indians) as well as for many church and civil jurisdictions. The altepeti was also the basis for the colonial Nahua municipality and its cabildo (Hispanic- style town council). This focus has immediate consequences for modern scholars. When Spanish administrative practices were coupled with the explosive growth in the number of altepetl notaries trained in Nahuatl ("Aztec language") alphabetical writing, the result was an ever-increasing volume of local documents written in the languages of both colonizer and colonized. However some altepeti are better endowed with such resources than others. Coyoacan is among the luckiest in this regard. Extant records in Spanish and Nahuatl begin

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916 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXIX / 3 (1998)

early and are numerous and varied.This is due in no small part to the importance of its first encomendero (holder of an encomienda), the legendary conquistador Don Hernando Cortes.

The author makes good use of her documentary riches. Like other social historians of early Latin America, she draws out meaningful patterns from a mass of routine notarial and official documents associated with a specific subregion, skeptical of all partisan statements and sweeping generalizations. Consequently, she rigorously avoids such widespread stereo- types as "all the Spaniards were haughty nobles who lorded it over the lowly frightened Indi- ans" or "the church was the main agent of Hispanization among Indians." Long before 1600, Coyoacan society had become too complex to support these charged literary formulae. Nahuas and Spaniards ranged broadly from poor marginalized commoners to those fortu- nate enough to be simultaneously wealthy, noble, and politically well connected; there were free and slave peoples ofAfrican descent; further confounding simplistic dichotomies was the presence of non-Spanish Europeans, indigenous peoples besides Nahuas, and an increasing number of those of mixed ancestry. People of all ethnic/national categories could be found aligned with or against each other in Mexico's fiercely litigious atmosphere, and representa- tives from all groups could be winners as well as losers. Cultural change went far beyond priestly Hispanization. Most importantly, it encompassed the influence that ordinary people had on each other as they married within and outside their ethnicities, traded with each other, worked and prayed together, and sought to improve their lot in life by ever-varying combinations of competition and cooperation.

The author organizes her discussion into two sections. The first, "Formal Political and Economic Relations," includes four chapters covering the altepeti of Coyoacan, its cabildo, local Spanish officialdom, and tribute and labor. The second, "Landholding and the Market Economy," consists of four chapters devoted to the Nahua household, land transfers, Spanish estates, and the market economy.The principal merits of this study are several.The first is its richly detailed portrayal of Coyoacan. The second is how the author shows that succeeding moments in Coyoacan's history responded to changing Nahua and Spanish circumstances. For example, the adverse impact of Nahua land sales to Spaniards was at first considerably attenuated. Early demographic disaster and plentiful holdings meant that altepeti residents had surplus land to sell, while initial Spanish demand for such land was relatively mild because the number and wealth of the buyers was limited. Later, such casual attitudes were abandoned. Nahua numbers and demand for land began expanding again while at the same time wealthy Spanish investors from nearby Mexico City were becoming actively interested in the area's economic potential. The result was an increasingly bitter struggle over land (repeated all over central Mexico) between Spanish estate owners and altepeti like Coyoacan. The third contribution is the author's mapping of Coyoacan's wards. These subunits were poorly understood by contemporary Spaniards yet were vital to every aspect of altepeti func- tioning from the selection of crews for public works projects to the election of municipal officers.This- last is a unique achievement and much appreciated by specialists.

The author's well-organized chapters, straightforward prose, and concise examples give full force to her presentation. The only significant failing is the lack of comparative com- mentary, especially given the current state of colonial Mexican ethnohistorical studies.This caveat aside, I heartily recommend this work to specialists and nonspecialists alike. Barry Sell ...... Glendale, CA

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