Territory and Environment in Western Oaxaca (Mexico): Legal Strategies Surrounding “the Commons” During the Colonial Era

The western part of the state of Oaxaca was inhabited by Mixtec (the majority), Triqui, Nahua, Afro-descendant and mestizo populations, as well as some Spaniards; it was home to areas of ecological and human transition where indigenous señoríos and cacicazgos with a long history converged, along with small and medium-sized mining companies, extensive transhumant herds and sugar cane plantations, as well as indigenous forms of agriculture with areas of crops of Mediterranean origin. In this paper, I focus on this environmental and human corridor between the 16th and 18th centuries, to analyze the legal strategies that were deployed to guarantee the common possession, management and use of resources, which was the result of the deployment of various powers (potestades) by the Indian peoples and the individual and corporate social actors with whom they interacted (cacicazgos, the church, Spaniards, haciendas). Land and water tenure and their legal aspects, conceived in a pluralistic and realistic manner, and without separating them from the power relations that generated and accompanied them at the operational level, lead us to analyze the strategies of collective action institutions, taking into account both formal and informal norms, in a kind of institutional bricolage that, in turn, shapes these institutions based on social and cultural arrangements in response to changing situations. This type of analysis allows us to observe the territorial, political, socio-economic and environmental implications surrounding “the commons” and to assess the role of the legal strategies used, such as the figures of the mancomún and the amparo (legal protection).