Indigenous visions regarding the Conquer of El Bajío

Abstract

In this article I shall explain how the otomí indians participated in the production of historical manuscripts during the Colonial era, as well as other linguistic communities in central Mexico. During the early Colonial period, the natives of this region used the pictorial language developed during the pre-hispanic era, together with their oral tradition and alphabetic writing, to record their historical memory. In the late Colonial period, a new documental genre arose for registering native history, called títulos primordiales, with the additional purpose of legitimizing the power of the indigenous nobility and the collective rights of the Indian towns. The relaciones de Nicolás de San Luis, written in the Bajío during the latter half of the Colonial era, are related to the títulos primordiales in form and content. I shall define and briefly describe this documental corpus, tracing its impact on regional historiography.