Visions of the Future in Sixteenth-Century New Spain

Sixteenth-century New Spain (Mexico) witnessed enormous upheavals. The list is long and includes the fall of the Aztec empire; the grafting of Spanish imperial expansion onto preexisting Indigenous structures; the Spanish attempt to evangelize native peoples; and the great demographic catastrophes suffered by Indigenous communities.  In the midst of this great turmoil, subjects in New Spain offered a number of unique visions for what the future of this place might look like. Among the most famous and well studied are the utopian religious/economic communities of figures like Vasco de Quiroga or some Spanish friars' proposal for an Indigenous priesthood, both of which competed with many other plans for what the emerging society should be. This paper surveys these projects, but places them alongside a number of less well-known visions of the future in sixteenth-century Mexico, including those of Indigenous peoples, in an effort to gauge how the future transformed during this pivotal period of Mexican and world history.