Reclaiming Lordships: Caciques, Spanish Courts, and the Politics of Nostalgia in Eighteenth-Century Mexico

Throughout the colonial period, indigenous elites in Mesoamerica pursued diverse objectives via the Spanish justice system. Seeking, for example, tax exemptions, land rights, and political appointments, one of their common legal strategies before Spanish judges was to claim descent from the ancient noble lineages of Mesoamerica and the early, sixteenth-century native allies of the Spanish conquistadors. This paper highlights the role of nostalgia for preconquest civilization in the caciques' late-colonial efforts to preserve their distinction as sanctioned and privileged indigenous nobility