"In November 1782, Vicente Gonzales de Santianes, the governor of Nuevo Leon, received a sheaf of documents from a protracted legal dispute in the Indian town of San Miguel de Aguayo. At first glance, the case seems so utterly commonplace as to be beneath the notice of the region's chief magistrate. One of San Miguel's Tlaxcalan stoneworkers had been accused of an adulterous liaison with a townswoman"--Provided by publisher.

"In November 1782, Vicente Gonzales de Santianes, the governor of Nuevo Leon, received a sheaf of documents from a protracted legal dispute in the Indian town of San Miguel de Aguayo. At first glance, the case seems so utterly commonplace as to be beneath the notice of the region's chief magistrate. One of San Miguel's Tlaxcalan stoneworkers had been accused of an adulterous liaison with a townswoman"--

In this engaging book, Eric Van Young traces the political, economic, and social development of Mexico through the crucial one hundred years of its remarkable transition from a relatively prosperous Spanish colony to a violently unstable republic marked by economic stagnation, political confrontation, and burgeoning efforts at modernization. Featuring primary sources from figures of the period, Van Young discusses the political instability of the period—internal warfare, military uprisings, intermittent dictatorships, sharp conflicts among political groupings—and attributes them to a belief by political actors in the fundamental lack of legitimacy in central government institutions after the sweeping away of the Bourbon imperial structure and its replacement first with a very short-lived Mexican empire followed by a series of increasingly authoritarian aspirational republican constitutions.

Marriages between Americans and Mexican society women and membership in such organizations as Masonic brotherhoods brought the foreigners into the most important social circles.".

Presented in an easy-to-follow chronological framework, this thorough and insightful survey offers a complete historical account of colonial Mexico from the period preceding European contact through the wars of independence in the early nineteenth century. Emphasizing regional diversity and development, it skillfully combines existing knowledge with the most recent scholarship in the field, guiding readers through Mexico's three centuries of colonial rule, and bringing history to life through the experiences of Mexico's indigenous peoples before, during and after the Spanish conquest. Considers the peoples and cultures who inhabited Mesoamerica before the arrival of Europeans; the Spanish conquest and subsequent c lashes and interactions among groups; the precocious economic and institutional development of the Kingdom of New Spain; the expansion of Hispanic society and culture from central Mexico into more remote areas; the growing complexity of society and economy over the centuries of Spanish rule. Presents intriguing recent trends in study, including the use of indigenous-produced documents and texts to study sociopolitical structures, language patterns, gender roles, economic activities and cultural change and continuity among Indian groups during the colonial period. For historians and general readers who wish to learn more of Mexico's early history and development.