Mexico City

views updated

MEXICO CITY

MEXICO CITY. Mexico City was in many ways the quintessential city of the early modern period. While many cities in the Valley of Mexico had existed for several centuries prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in 1519, Mexico City was relatively young, having been founded in 1325. It was originally a swampy safe haven for the Mexica people, popularly known as the Aztecs. Locating in the middle of the lake that filled the Valley of Mexico, the Mexica used land-reclamation techniques to convert this swampy area into a city of nearly a quarter million inhabitants by the time of the conquest. They called their city Tenochtitlán. Over the course of time a twin city, Tlatelolco, developed to the north and was home of the merchants who served as the commercial "glue" of the Mexica empire.

Mexico City fell to the Spanish on 13 August 1521. Hernán Cortés (1485–1547) ordered the site abandoned and built his capital several miles south in the town of Coyoacán. Nevertheless, the old site continued to attract both native peoples and Spaniards, and construction of a city began there. Finally, in 1524, Cortés recognized the old city as the new capital, giving it the name Mexico-Tenochtitlán.

Mexico City then entered into a period of development as a hybrid city. The city took on a grid pattern of streets radiating off of a large central plaza. The cathedral, royal palace, and offices of the municipal government surrounded the central plaza, which was eventually called the Zócalo. The Spanish district of the city radiated out some ten blocks from the plaza. This part of the city came to be known as the traza. Beyond the traza was the Indian city. Spanish colonial law mandated a separate but equal political organization for the native peoples. They were largely self-governing but were subject to Spanish royal law. They were physically segregated, living in their own neighborhoods outside of the traza. The native peoples were required to provide labor service to the Spanish colonists, yet they also engaged in their own activities, including farming, craft production, and transport of goods.

Mexico City was the first significant place where peoples from four continents created a single city. The Spanish conquerors brought Africans, both slave and free, along with them. It has been estimated that as much as half of the city's population consisted of African slaves. The sixteenth century saw the arrival of Asians to the city, initially from the Spanish colony of the Philippines, but eventually from China, Japan, and Korea. Like the Africans, Asians tended to provide household service to the Spanish, but they also found a niche in the ceramic and textile industries.

The city had been founded on a lake. Its symbiotic relationship with the lake formed much of the city's early identity. As more of the lakeshore was reclaimed, the threat of flooding became continual. By the end of the sixteenth century seasonal flooding inundated the city. In the early seventeenth century the royal government constructed a massive drainage canal to remove the water from the lake and drain it into a nearby river system.

Mexico City was the cultural, religious, political, and cultural capital of New Spain, which was Spain's name for the colony. Within the traza, wealthy Spaniards jockeyed for preeminence in building their palaces. Religious orders staked out sumptuous and imposing buildings, thereby claiming their presence in the city. The Inquisition, the Pontifical and Royal University, and many other civil organizations built equally impressive edifices. The traza could no longer hold the Spanish population, and it began to spill out along the well-established causeways and avenues that radiated off of the central plaza. In the early seventeenth century the viceroy decreed the creation of a large public garden, known as the Alameda.

During the eighteenth century, Mexico City saw dramatic changes. The city grew rapidly, building principally to the south and west, as vast areas of dry lakebed were reclaimed. Wealth resulting from increased mining activity and commerce poured into the city, prompting a building boom. Rich miners, merchants, and newly titled nobles built palatial mansions. The religious orders also constructed opulent churches and convents. The city more completely eclipsed all the regional capitals as the leading metropolis of the colony. By the end of the century, Mexico City was unquestionably the largest and most opulent city of the region, if not the hemisphere.

See also Spanish Colonies: Mexico .