It is extremely rare to find cartographic representations of indigenous geographies in colonial Spanish America. Descriptions of territories, internal boundaries, and frontiers (or explanations thereof) in Spanish America rarely include references to indigenous peoples or knowledge obtained from them. The same happened with early national governments. Historians of Latin America have emphasized the importance of indigenous cartographic or pictorial visions to affirm the existence of specific materials related to the ethnic groups of the Americas, but few have considered how indigenous peoples, especially their local economies, were the basis for the creation of the intendancies in Chiapas, and the continuity of alcaldías mayores and corregimientos in Guatemala.
Just after independence, under newly created national governments, every territory of Spanish America was transformed from large, united entities into separate and “well defined” units. The transition from one political regime to another during the Age of Revolutions is well known, but the creation of boundaries has been overlooked in the history of southeast Mexico and Guatemala. Historians know about treatises, diplomatic conventions, and other sources that helped governments define boundaries among countries. The results of such histories only leave a blurry idea of how colonial and national state agents understood territories, and how they used local knowledge to create territorial divisions.
Seemingly unrelated manuscripts and maps can reveal the idea of “neutral” geographies produced by earlier historical events and colonial jurisprudence, which eliminate all traces of previous knowledge of indigenous peoples of Chiapas and Guatemala. An understanding of how colonial and national authorities envisioned and replied to questionnaires and reports, however, helps to reveal indigenous embedded geographies in the creation of national territories.
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