Sociodemographic profile of Tehuacän during the viceroyalty

Abstract

The article provides with a geohistorical panorama of the Tehuacán region, a valley so rich in natural resources that it favored the development of cultures dating as far back as ten millenniums and which since prehispanic times has served as a trade link between the altipiano and the southeast of Mesoamerica. At present, the district is the most important economic, political, and cultural center in the south of the state of Puebla. The authors reconstruct the transformations it experienced in terms of its territorial division, as well as its role in the political and administrative structure of the bishopric, intendency, and later the state of Mexico. They also outline the evolution of population from ancient times to the final years of the colonial period. The data utilized range from primitive tallies of indigenous payers of tribute and families (with which they show the demographic implosion that the population of New Spain underwent throughout the sixteenth century and its recovery as of the second half of the following century) to the military census taken in the year 1791. Two hundred years afterwards, that census is used by the authors to describe the demographic and social order of the city of Tehuacán de las Granadas.