Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture, 1500-1700

In this book, Susan Kellogg explains how Spanish law served as an instrument of cultural transformation and adaptation in the lives of Nahuatl-speaking peoples during the years 1500-1700 - the first two centuries of colonial rule. She shows that law had an impact on numerous aspects of daily life, especially gender relations, patterns of property ownership and transmission, and family and kinship organization. Based on a wide array of local-level Spanish and Nahuatl documentation and an intensive analysis of seventy-three lawsuits over property involving Indians residing in colonial Mexico City (Tenochtitlan), this work reveals how legal documentation offers important clues to attitudes and perceptions. Although Kellogg's analysis reflects contemporary and theoretical developments in social and literary theory, it also applies a unique ethnographic and textual approach to the subject.