"...and you will commission a painting of the place where the town is located...": Land Grant Maps and Territory in Colonial New Spain

The response of most native communities in New Spain towards land distribution policies in the sixteenth century stands as a sophisticated and creative process because of the actions undertaken by the population to claim the land as theirs, but also due to the artistic production that was an essential part of this response. In this paper, I will present an analysis of four painted maps made by native artists for the legal proceedings of the land tenure program known as Mercedes de Tierra (land grants) for the towns of Coatlinchan, Pahuatlan, Huapalteopan, and Coatepec. In the last decades of the sixteenth century, when land grants became common and widespread, Sunday mass at any given town in New Spain sometimes ended with the reading of an official announcement, known as an Acordado. This document contained an instruction sent by the Viceroy to the town's local Spanish authorities notifying the Indigenous population of a request for land from the town's surrounding region (either for agricultural purposes or to keep cattle). These requests were highly controversial and throughout the different provinces of New Spain, the reading of the Acordado set off a shrewd response by communities affected by the new grants. I argue that these paintings bring us closer to understanding how the native population re-created territory for Spanish authorities, as well as for themselves, in the sixteenth century and how they re-imagined their connection to a particular space after contact.