Civil Congregation of the Western Chinantec, New Spain, 1599–1603

Abstract

CIVIL congregation of the Indians in New Spain was one phase of the continuing program which Spanish colonial officials had been conducting since earliest days in the New World to civilize and Christianize American native groups by urbanizing them. Application of this doctrine to New Spain as a whole in the years which began in the seventeenth century has been discussed elsewhere. Here the purpose is to fit the general procedures to a specific case by describing in detail the congregation process as it affected San Pedro Yolox, a small center of Chinantec Indian hamlets in the Sierra de Juarez, lying in the modern Mexican state of Oaxaca.