THE TERRAZGUEROS’ REVOLT: EARLY ETHNOGENESIS BEFORE THE SPANISH COLONIALISM

Abstract

The Spanish colonial process in what is now known as Mexico led to important social, political and economic changes, where indigenous peoples were active participants in the construction of its historical development. In the case of the Nahua people of the Central Highlands in particular the former properties of social organization as productive units or neighborhoods called calpultin, allowing them to defend their collective interests, coupled with colonial interests by the disintegration of the political and economic power Indian caciques and “encomenderos”, and growing social unrest because of the economic, political, social and demographic crisis that afflicted the territory throughout the sixteenth century, is concatenated to bring indigenous "common" (farmers mainly) take the "Revolt of the “terrazgueros”, fight "popular" by the reconfiguration of the political-economic "social pact" genesis of the Republic of Indians in New Spain, ontological reinvention of being indigenous in the colonial context and strategy colony to lay the groundwork that will lead to flourish after nearly three centuries.