Cambio y continuidades en la territorialidad nativa. El espacio noreste novohispano, siglos XVI-XVIII

Abstract

In the long and complex process of conquest in northeastem New Spain, the control of native lndians was attempted, basically, by three means: 1) military conquest sustained by the use ofpresidial [orces in the defense of Spanish settlements and punishment of the unsubmissive; 2) religious conversion through missionary actívity oriented toward reducing paganism; and 3) Spanish colonization, which can be characterized as the civilian expression of the process of conquest. This last means, which we may measure by the persistence of civil settlements in zones considered hostile frontiers, is perhaps the most enduring achievement of Spanish expansion. For that reason the maxim "populate in order to use" became one of the most important principies of royal officials in making policy for northem New Spain. In the process, the fundamental objectives that nourished the first centuty of conquest -- conversion of pagans to the Christian faith and providing for their adoption of Spanish ways of life -- passed in the eighteenth century to a lesser plane, subordinated to the goal ofachieving absolute control ofterritories considered.to be under Spanish dominion. To seize, consolidate, and control what they considered a ''wilderness" region, were justifiable actions from the perspective of the Spaniards who carne to northern New Spain between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.