Indigenous resilience in Uruapan in the nineteenth century

Abstract

Uruapan was a town of Indians in colonial times, it had the presence of non-Indians, the “gente de razón”, since the end of the sixteenth century, which increased in number until it became the majority from the mid-eighteenth century. The cabildo indígena of Uruapan suffered the onslaught of the governments of independent Mexico, an offensive against indigenous communities to end racial differentiation and communal property. A part of the population of Uruapan maintained its indigenous identity in the nineteenth century through several elements, such as the election of its traditional authorities, a separate entry in the parish register, the network of rights and festive obligations with the church, noted in the Pindecuario, and community property. Indigenous identity survived in traditional neighborhoods and has been revitalized in the new millennium.