4

Let us turn now to the decades after the Spanish Conquest. That conquest deeply altered the forms and fabric of native life. One would suppose that it should have affected native production and consumption of food. The question is: In what respects, and how far, in the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth century? The coming of the Europeans made available technology, plants, and animals previously unknown and capable of deeply altering Indian food production and diet. In addition, that coming unleashed other changes which were bound to have a profound effect upon native utilization of land and other resources. Among the new plants and crops introduced by the Europeans were grains, such as wheat, barley, oats; vegetables, such as lettuce, radishes, carrots, cabbage; fruits, such as apples, quinces, oranges, lemons, peaches, apricots; nuts, such as walnuts. Two fruits introduced by the Spaniards that have unusual interest were bananas, from Africa but strange to many Spaniards and so described by them as native to Mexico,^[72] and guavas,^[73] which came from the Antilles. A third European introduction of a non-European

[71] See the comment by Gibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule , pp. 309–310, and Francisco Javier Clavijero, Historia antigua de México , II, pp. 248–249.

[72] For example, Relación de las minas de Sultepec, 5 March 1582, PNE , VII, p. 9; Pedro Martínez, Descripción de la villa de Pánuco , p. 4.

[73] As in the Relación de Macuilsúchil, 9 April 1580, and the Relación de Chinantla, 1 November 1579, both in PNE , IV, pp. 103 and 65 respectively. The Relación de Chinantla correctly identifies guavas as coming from Hispaniola.

plant was the peanut, also from the Antilles, but given a Nahuatl name, tlalcacahoatl , little cacao—whence the present Mexican name cacahuate . In the sixteenth century it was raised in the region of Cuernavaca.^[74] Among the new animals were almost the entire array of Old World domesticates, such as horses, donkeys, mules, cattle, sheep, swine, goats, chickens, and the stinging bee, with its greater production of honey. For food production, the most important items of technology were the pasturage and uses of livestock and the Roman plow.

Among the changes unleashed by the coming of the Europeans was the sharp decline of the native population, largely through the introduction of Old World diseases, which reduced the aboriginal numbers in central Mexico as of 1518 by approximately 97% in roughly a century; that is, by the 1620's the Indian population of central Mexico was about 750,000, 3% of what it had been in 1518. The drop varied with region and climate, being most catastrophic on the coasts and considerably less on the plateau.^[75] Other changes were the insertion of the Spaniards as the new upper class; the relentless replacement of the native cult by Christian observances and clergy, but with a large underpinning of Indian assistants; demands for new services and products upon the Indian population by the Spanish overlords; the occupation of land and preemption of sources of water by the Spaniards for their own uses and purposes; and the beginning of the opening of the north to agricultural settlement, as the Spaniards applied the better European military technology to the problem of subduing the Chichimecs and settling the fine agricultural land thus made available.

The interaction of these factors made a complex pattern. The sharp and prolonged decline in Indian population made it impossible to cultivate large tracts of land. We know that very extensive tracts became waste, and that in consequence the availability of food through hunting, fishing, and gathering became correspondingly greater. We may further surmise that the Indian peasants of a town, forced to restrict cultivation to a much smaller part of their previous milpas and fields, would choose the better land for continued cultivation. Accordingly, the yield for effort spent on cultivation would improve; i.e., per

[74] Hernández, Historia natural , I, p. 306.

[75] See chap. 1 in this volume, and Cook and Borah, The Indian Population of Central Mexico, 1531–1610 , pp. 46–56.

capita output would rise. With the large expanses of land returned to waste, the Spaniards could occupy substantial tracts without serious harm to the Indian population, except for desirable portions that the Indians might have wanted to retain but that the Spaniards wrested from them. A further source of pressure was control of water. Land and water nearest large centers of Spanish population, particularly Mexico City, would have been the most subject to Spanish seizure, despite native wish to continue occupation. The more serious countrywide problem was the spread of Old World livestock, which ranged freely over the waste and quickly became feral or nearly so. It was no respecter of legal lines, and preyed upon the Indians' milpas and gardens if they were accessible.^[76] Had Old World livestock not moved into the ecological niche thus created, one may raise the question whether native species, such as deer, would not have multiplied with about the same result in harassing the Indians. Presumably deer and other wild species could be killed freely if found, whereas livestock had attached to them a presumptive Spanish property right.

One may measure the spread of Old World plants, animals, and technology through the reporting in tribute schedules, chronicles, land grants, and the Relaciones Geográficas. Although the Spanish attempted to persuade or force the Indians to raise wheat through requirement as tribute or other devices, the Indians found that the cultivation of wheat and other Old World cereals meant use of the plow, which in turn meant in the first years hiring a Spaniard and his work team of draft animals. They also found that the yield was less than that of maize, approximately 80% that of maize for the seed sown, and 70% for the area sown. Accordingly, there was persistent and substantial resistance to wholesale adoption of wheat. In more arid regions, where it had an advantage over maize, it was indeed used widely by the Indians, as in the Teotlalpan and the Mixteca Alta. Elsewhere, as the numerous references in the Relaciones Geográficas make clear, wheat was raised only in small quantities by the Indians. In general, the Hispanic com-

[76] For abandonment of land, land appropriation by Spaniards, and the spread of livestock, see Simpson, Exploitation of Land in Central Mexico in the Sixteenth Century, passim . See also Gibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule , pp. 257–299 and 405–408; and William B. Taylor, Landlord and Peasant in Colonial Oaxaca , pp. 67–257.

munity, demanding wheat bread through tradition and the prestige of the European, had to raise its own wheat, appropriating land and labor for the purpose.^[77] Barley with its poorer yields was even less favored, and oats competing for use as fodder with the far more easily available and cheaper maize leaves and stalks were ignored by the Indians. The items of widest adoption among Old World plants were the fruits and vegetables, which were planted on a small scale for home use throughout much of central Mexico, climate and soil being suitable. In the warmer climates of the lower altitudes, two Old World plants had manifest advantage and were widely adopted. Bananas, with their prolific yield and small need for care, provided a warm-country staple that filled a genuine need and had no clear competition from native plants. Sugarcane, yielding a sweetener previously supplied only by honey or thickened maguey syrup, also filled a niche more fully than any previously available item.^[78]

Of Old World animals, the adoptions by Indians in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century arose from their perception of usefulness and to a lesser extent pressure from the viceregal authorities and Spaniards. The animal most widely accepted was the chicken, which quickly spread throughout the country.^[79] The adoption of the other animals may be traced in part through Lesley Simpson's study of viceregal land grants and permissions to raise livestock. The exact identification of use is somewhat obscured by the Spanish division of livestock into ganado mayor and ganado menor . Although it is certain that most estancias de ganado menor raised sheep, the term covered swine and goats as well. The mammalian domesticate most rapidly accepted by the Indians was sheep. Their interest was more likely the supply of wool than meat, for wool pro-

[77] In addition to material in the Relaciones Geográficas, see Gibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule , pp. 319–326; Cook and Borah, The Indian Population of Central Mexico, 1531–1610 , p. 19; Borah, New Spain's Century of Depression , pp. 31–41.

[78] In general, bananas seem to have been raised in almost every town with a suitable climate. Sugarcane was less widely diffused by the time of the Relaciones Geográficas, but still is mentioned sufficiently to indicate a considerable measure of adoption by the Indians.

[79] By the time of the Relaciones Geográficas, chickens were present in virtually every town reporting. A few years later, Father Alonso Ponce and his companions were offered chickens for their food at almost every Indian town they came to. (Relación breve y verdadera . . . , passim .)

vided a far better fiber for cold-country use than any previously available, and enabled the plateau towns to make up the deficit of cotton that collapse of the tribute system of the Triple Alliance must have meant. According to Lesley Simpson's study, the overwhelming majority of grants to Indians were for sheep. A small proportion of grants were for raising horses and mules, and almost none were for raising cattle. The few such grants to Indians were on the eastern slopes of the plateau and in the north. In contrast, the majority of grants to Spaniards were for raising cattle, which spread rapidly throughout the country but were not in Indian ownership.^[80] The extent to which swine and goats were adopted by the Indians is more difficult to trace. Certainly they were used to a far more limited extent. Except in marginal areas, goats have little advantage, if any, and the use of the pig as a scavenger may have developed somewhat slowly, since the chicken is a competitor. One other Old World animal was also adopted fairly widely by the Indians, namely, the Old World bee, with its superior production of honey.^[81]

It is clear that the Indians in central Mexico adopted the plants, animals, and technology that made sense to them, and resisted the imposition of those items that meant a more expensive use of land and labor. The Roman plow, which meant the use of draft animals and the abandonment or destruction of steeply sloping land, spread very slowly.^[82] Its advantage over the digging stick was dubious at best, and the crop most immediately linked to it, wheat, considerably less advantageous than maize in terms of food per unit of land. Moreover, preparation of wheat for consumption in the Spanish manner required grinding and processing in ways not easily available to an Indian

[80] Simpson, Exploitation of Land in Central Mexico, passim .

[81] Relaciones Geográficas, passim . Charles Gibson, Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century , pp. 150–154, indicates wide raising of pigs by Indians in Tlaxcala in the second half of the sixteenth century, but that province may be aberrant, since the Relaciones Geográficas and Ponce's Relación breve y verdadera do not confirm such raising for all of central Mexico, nor does Gibson himself indicate it for the Valley of Mexico (The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule, passim) . See also Gómara's comment (II, p. 400): "Comen poca carne, creo que por tener poca, pues comen bien tocino y puerco fresco. No quieren carnero ni cabrón, porque les huele mal; cosa digna de notar, comiendo cuantas cosas hay vivas, y hasta sus mismos piojos. . . . "

[82] The spread of the plow among the Indians of central Mexico is clearly a story in itself that has never been explored. Clavijero (Historia antigua , II, pp. 248–249) indicates general adoption by the middle of the eighteenth century.

household. Equally slow was the spread of other crops dependent on the use of the plow. Chickens were an efficient scavenger, needing little care, able to fend for themselves, supplied eggs, and were a ready source of flesh in such small, inexpensive amounts that peasants could wring the neck of a chicken without reflecting upon the loss of revenue. Accordingly, they spread quickly. Sheep, with their special advantages in solving the needs of the Indians on the plateau, also spread quickly, although more slowly than chickens. The reasons for the slowness of the Indians to turn to raising cattle or pigs are less easily apparent. Cattle are more difficult to control than sheep, and perhaps more menace to milpas and gardens; they also represented a large investment without the annual yield of wool. Pigs may have looked less useful than chickens, a competing scavenger which both yielded eggs and came in smaller and more easily utilized units as flesh. On the other hand, pigs are the source of the highly prized cooking fat, lard, in a country which before the Spanish Conquest had no readily available, abundant supply of cooking fat or oil. Frying, one surmises, is essentially a post-Conquest culinary art. Finally, goats may have been considered less useful than sheep, yet in certain kinds of terrain their ability to browse on foliage instead of cropping grass allows them to survive where sheep cannot exist. Furthermore, goats are a good source of meat, and a rapid rate of reproduction is coupled with ready marketability.

Accordingly, in central Mexico, with the exception of a few of the more arid areas, Indian agriculture continued to raise maize, beans, squash, chile, tomatoes, as in the past, and the Indian diet continued to rely upon maize as a staple. What, then, did the Conquest bring in the way of change during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries?

First, the catastrophic shrinkage of the Indian population almost certainly meant that the survivors concentrated their efforts upon the better lands, and that average yields rose to correspond. So per capita output must have risen, and with it per capita consumption. Our study of prices of labor and of certain tribute commodities like maize indicates that in the second half of the sixteenth century wages rose more rapidly than commodity prices; that is, whatever the quirks of seasons, over the long term the wage of a day laborer tended to buy more maize. The main reason lay in the growing shortage of

labor,^[83] but the phenomenon is consonant as well with an improvement in per capita production and consumption.

A second change in food economy for which the Spanish Conquest was responsible was the pressure toward restriction of variety. It was economically more profitable under the European system to concentrate serious labor in the production of a few staple items, rather than to scatter energy in hunting and gathering types of food which were of diverse character and in the aggregate amounted to a great deal, but individually were trivial. Here would be found the snakes, insects, and algae. This reduction of multifarious natural sources occurred in the face of the introduction of new plants and animals, new grains, fruits, and vegetables. The latter species could be planted, harvested, and eaten under the supervision of the farmer, whereas the ancient resources flourished independently of any human control. Hence an apparent increase in resource range was actually accomplished by a canalization of effort which was more economical of effort than the old system and which actually furnished more edible material.

The further meaning of Old World animals for Indian food production and diet is distinctly more difficult to analyze. The Indian peasantry found a source of eggs and flesh in its chickens; in the end, the sheep and goats it raised would have made meat available, at least from old animals past any other usefulness. Furthermore, although the Indians did not take to raising cattle in the period we deal with, there is much testimony to the effect that they bought cattle for slaughter or bought beef from the Spaniards. Such beef was probably an item for the upper classes, and for the peasantry only on infrequent holidays.^[84] Indeed, for the Indian upper classes the changes undoubtedly meant mere substitution, as in deference to European ideas they gave up consumption of human flesh and forewent protein from snakes and insects in favor of flesh from

[83] Borah and Cook, Price Trends , pp. 39–46.

[84] Gibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule , pp. 346–347; Gibson, Tlaxcala , p. 153; Ponce, Relación breve y verdadera, passim ; and Relaciones Geográficas, passim . The reports of the secretaries of Father Ponce would indicate a rather high consumption of beef by the Indians, but the Relaciones Geográficas, although also testifying to wide consumption of beef, indicate that ability to buy it played an important role in limiting consumption. See the detailed report by Juan Bautista Ponce in the Relación de Texcoco (García Icazbalceta, Nueva colección , III, pp. 49 and 54–55).

domesticated animals. For the lower classes the improvement was undoubtedly considerably less, but in an austere diet counted proportionately for far more. This improvement, in fact, constitutes the third probable change in food and nutrition referable to the Spanish invasion.

Although evidence is fragmentary, there are several bits which point to an increase in the average intake of both protein and kilocalories among the laborers and peasants of central Mexico in the decades from the middle of the sixteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth century. Our own examination of the wages of common labor in terms of purchasing power of maize indicates a rise in real wages after the first shock of the Conquest, a rise likely to have as one of its first effects an increase in consumption of basic foodstuffs. What evidence we have of rations and allowances of food point in the same direction. In September 1532 Lic. Maldonado, oidor of the Audiencia of Mexico, set the daily ration to be supplied by the town of Zicapuzalco to a slave gang working in the mines of Tasco at one cuartillo of maize, that is 1/48 of a fanega of 100 Castilian pounds, or 958 grams.^[85] In November 1555, as we have already indicated, Viceroy Luis de Velasco proposed that the royal government furnish the Indian workmen to be drafted for repair of the dike system controlling the water levels in the lakes of Mexico, with a daily ration of one cuartillo of maize. He also proposed that the city of Mexico furnish meat for the workmen in a quantity that unfortunately cannot be determined, but must have envisaged an issue of several ounces daily or three times a week.^[86] As we have already indicated, these were probably family rations.

Charles Gibson has assembled other evidence. According to him, in 1618 the standard ration for laborers on the Desagüe of the Valley of Mexico was one almud of maize per week, or 1/12 of a fanega. This means 12,880 kilocalories per week, or 1,840 kilocalories per day. Presumably other food was available to

[85] Mexico, AGN, El Libro de las tasaciones , pp. 633–634. The slaves may have been given meat from another source. Presumably women made the tortillas and were fed from this ration without additional allowance.

[86] Mexico (City), Actas de cabildo  . . . , VI, pp. 192–193, session of 4 November 1555. The viceroy proposed that the city furnish 1,000 pesos de minas, which would buy meat for the 6,000 Indian workmen during a period of two months. Unfortunately we do not know the official price of beef at this time. If we estimate the ration at approximately 4 ounces daily, the price would have been 20 maravedís the arrelde of 4 pounds, a perhaps reasonable price for 1555, which was a year of scarcity. The city council, alleging poverty, refused to provide the meat.

supplement this allowance, so that the total caloric intake might have reached 2,200 or 2,300 kilocalories. Much later, in 1769, the standard ration for hacienda labor was, according to Gibson, 2 almudes of maize a week.^[87]

These rations are high as allowances for a single man, even at hard labor. The question is pertinent whether this food was not intended for a man's family as well as for himself. There can be little doubt that such was the case on haciendas, where families were domiciled for long periods. We may also postulate the presence of women ministering to husbands working on the Desagüe, since the maize would have to be ground and baked into tortillas each day for consumption. Gibson mentions the presence of women tortilla-makers with the Desagüe labor drafts.^[88]

The one instance where there is room for doubt concerns workers in the obrajes, who were usually kept confined. The ordinances for workers in obrajes, issued in 1579 by Viceroy Enríquez, set the daily ration at 2 Castilian pounds of tortillas, tamales, or bread, that is, approximately 920 grams of whichever was issued, to be given in three metals, and

 . . . a medio día se les de un pedazo de carne los días que se pudiere comer, y a la noche tres o cuatro chiles; y el día que no fuere de carne se les de un cajete de frijoles o habas, y a la noche los chiles. . . .

( . . . at noon let them be given a chunk of meat on days when meat may be eaten, and at night three or four chiles; on days of abstinence let them be given a pot of frijoles or lima beans, and at night the chiles. . . . )^[89]

We cannot be sure of the exact weight of a "chunk of meat," nor probably could the Spaniards of the time, but it must have meant at least 4 ounces of bone, fat, and muscle, a considerable nutritive addition to the 2 Castilian pounds of tortillas, tamales, or bread. The tortillas, tamales, or bread would have had a value of 2,100 to 2,200 kilocalories. The meat would have contributed at least 250 kilocalories, plus 20-odd grams of animal protein. The chiles, plus scraps which the persons might pick up

[87] Gibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule , p. 311.

[88] Ibid .

[89] Viceroy Enríquez, Mexico City, 7 November 1579, in Mexico, AGN, Boletín , XI (1940), p. 16. The ration was set in terms of weight to replace previous requirements that an Indian worker in an obraje be furnished daily 18 tortillas or 14 tamales and three times a week meat, on other days and in Lent frijoles, chile, or lima beans. Obraje owners either paid no attention or provided tortillas and tamales of small size and weight. Habas would normally mean horse beans, but in Mexican conditions were more likely lima beans.

from time to time, might add another 100 kilocalories,^[90] so that the total daily intake would have reached 2,450–2,550 kilocalories. This is clearly a reasonably generous allowance for one person engaged in moderate activity, if the obraje owner actually furnished it.

To sum up, definitive answers are precluded by a lack of evidence; yet there is a strong presumption that the extremely low nutritional levels endured by the Indians of pre-Conquest central Mexico were mitigated significantly after the first shock of the Spanish Conquest, that is, in a process that began by the second half of the sixteenth century. This presumption finds further support in the fact that the daily march of bearers under full load, which was five leagues or hours of work in 1519,^[91] increased under the Spaniards to six.^[92] Perhaps the strongest support is in the testimony of the Relaciones Geográficas, which repeatedly stress the austerity of life before the coming of the Spaniards and the greater abundance and ease for the commoner once the Spaniards had imposed their rule. The respondents were trying to explain the shocking disappearance of the Indian population; but their testimony, on the whole, is firmly in favor of the idea that living conditions for commoners had improved.

The Spaniards undoubtedly undertook to secure as much native labor as possible as cheaply as possible. The fact that they allowed their workers far more food than the latter had been accustomed to in the aboriginal state is evidence first that the food was available at low cost. This condition, in turn, is referable to the economic and demographic changes induced by the Conquest itself, and discussed here in a prior context. The increase in ration is also probably due in considerable measure to the opinion of the Spaniards on what constituted an adequate allowance. It must be remembered that the Spaniards were thorough Europeans, and that 2 pounds of bread or the equivalent and 4 ounces of meat, supplemented by some oil or fat and vegetables, constituted a minimal adequate diet for a working man, consistent with current Christian thought. We doubt if they could conceive of steady labor being performed when supported by a diet similar to that endured by the Mexica and other Indians of central Mexico under aboriginal conditions.

[90] Hernández et al., Valor nutritivo , pp. 6–16.

[91] See note 48.

[92] See the evidence assembled in Borah and Cook, Price Trends , pp. 41–42.