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A Note on Torquemada’s Native Sources and Historiographical Methods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Howard F. Cline
Howard F. Cline*
Affiliation:
Hispanic Foundation, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
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Extract

Historians generally see their tasks broken into three main stages: as comprehensive as possible collection of relevant documentation, followed by critical and evaluative appraisal of it, and finally, a synthesis based on verified data. Contrary to a considerable body of hostile secondary discussion, critical examination of Juan de Torquemada’s Monarquía Indiana indicates a surprisingly high level of workmanship in at least the first two phases. Although what he strove for in synthesis—an accurate record that would place native Mexican cultures on a par with ancient, classical, and for him modern societies—is an early and interesting example of a comparative approach, the classical and Biblical citations he employed for such comparisons are now largely of curiosity value, except as clues to his own ambience and personal outlook.

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , April 1969 , pp. 372 - 386
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1969

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References

1 de Mendieta, Gerónimo, Historia eclesiástica indiana, Icazbalceta, Joaquín García, ed. (Mexico City, 1870)Google Scholar, esp. “Tabla de correspondencia entre la Historia Eclesiástica de Fr. G. de Mendieta y la Monarquía Indiana de Fr. Juan de Torquemada,” pp. xxxvii-xlv.

2 Toribio de Benavente (“Motolinia”), Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España [Introductory bio-bibliographical notes by José Fernández Ramírez], Colección de Documentos para la Historia de Mexico, I (Mexico City, 1858), cxxxii Google Scholar, notes 19, 20; cliii. Recent re-edition, Ramírez, J.F., Vida de Fray Toribio Motolinia, Colección de Escritores Mexicanos, 4 (Mexico City, 1944)Google Scholar.

3 According to d’Olwer, Luis Nicolau, Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590) (Mexico City, 1952), pp. 175–176 Google Scholar, n. 3, Francisco Paso y Troncoso had collated passages of Sahagún’s Historia General with MI, and concluded that Torquemada knew and utilized nine of the twelve Sahagún Books, “unos completos, otros troncos y muchos en sumario.” Paso y Troncoso, who never completed his massive program of re-issuing Bernardino de Sahagún’s writings, left only an unpublished fragment, “Notas de la Monarquía Indiana,” Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia (Mexico), FPT Colección, Legajo 43, no. 4 [Libreta 5]. Unfortunately, this treats only the Virgin of Guadalupe (Miguel León-Portilla, in litt.).

4 Toscano, Alejandra Moreno, Fray Juan de Torquemada y su Monarquía Indiana, Universidad Veracruzana-México, Cuadernos de la Facultad de Filosofía, Letras y Ciencias, 19 (Xalapa, Ver., 1963)Google Scholar, esp. Apéndice I, “Fuentes utilizadas por fray Juan de Torquemada en su Monarquía Indiana, referentes a la historia de México,” pp. 93–95; see also her “Vindicación de Torquemada,” Historia Mexicana, XII (abr.-jun. 1963), 497–515, esp. p. 510 Google Scholar. Fray Juan de Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, selección, introducción y notas [por] León-Portilla, Miguel, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Biblioteca del Estudiante Universitario, 84 (Mexico City, 1964), esp. pp. xvii–xxx Google Scholar.

5 The bibliography on relationships of writings by Tovar, Durán, and Acosta is extensive and complicated. An introduction to it may be found in Kubler, George and Gibson, Charles, The Tovar Calendar: an illustrated Mexican manuscript of ca. 1585. Reproduced with a commentary and handlist of sources on the Mexican 365-day year (New Haven, 1951. Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, XI), pp. 9–12 Google Scholar; O’Gorman, Edmundo, “Estudio preliminar” in de Acosta, José, Historia natural y Moral de las Indias (México, 1940; re-issued 1962), pp. xi–xxiii, lxvii-xcvGoogle Scholar; Bernal, Ignacio, “Introduction” to The Aztecs: The History of New Spain by Fray Diego Duran. Translated, with notes, by Heyden, Doris and Horcasitas, Fernando (New York, 1964)Google Scholar. With appreciation I acknowledge help from Dr. John B. Glass and Mr. Charles Moolick for this paragraph.

6 León-Portilla, Torquemada, p. xiv; Burrus, Ernest J., “Clavigero and the lost Sigüenza y Góngora manuscripts,” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl, I (1959), 59–90 Google Scholar, cit. at pp. 67–68.

7 K., Angel Maria Garibay, Historia de la literatura náhuatl (2 vols.; Mexico City, 1953-1954) I, 450-51, II, 228–229, 308–313Google Scholar (and passim) provides considerable but disorganized information on Alva Ixtlilxochitl and his sources. He merits more extended and careful treatment.

8 Author’s hypothesis. Garibay, , Literatura náhuatl, I, 34–35, 452Google Scholar, briefly mentions the group as prelude to analysis of no. 5, “Tlatelolco . . . MS. de 1528,” ibid., 452–54. A facsimile of the group was edited by Mengin, Ernst, Unos annales históricos de la nación mexicana (Copenhagen, 1945)Google Scholar as Corpus codicum americanorum medii aevi, 2; he provides Nahuatl text, German translation, and commentary in “Unos annales históricos de la nación mexicana. Die Manuscrits Mexicaines Nr. 22 und 22 bis der Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris. Teil 1, Die Handschrift nebst Übersetzung. Teil 2, Der Kommentar,” Baessler Archiv, xxii (1939), 67–168, xxiii (1940), 115–39. A Spanish translation is provided by Berlin, Heinrich and Barlow, Robert H., Anales de Tlatelolco. Unos anales históricos de la nación mexicana y Códice de Tlatelolco (México, 1948 Google Scholar. Fuentes para la historia de México, 2). See Note 14.

9 One such group of divergent uses of probably common sources was noted in passing by Brusone, Julio Le Riverend, “La Historia Antigua de Mexico de Padre Francisco Javier Clavijero,” Estudios de Historiografía de la Nueva España (México, 1945), pp. 293–323 Google Scholar (cit., pp. 311–12). There are many others not yet reported.

10 Mappe Quinatzin (and diagram) reproduced in Cline, Howard F., “The Oztoticpac Lands Map of Texcoco, 1540,” Library of Congress Quarterly Journal, 23 (Apr. 1966), 76–115, Fig. 12 (p. 92)Google Scholar. Drawings of the Codex Ixtlilxochitl, Part 2, are reproduced in Boban, Eugene, Documents pour servir a l’histoire du Mexique. Catalogue raissoné de la collection de M. E. Eugene Goupil (ancienne collection, J. M.A. Aubin, 2 vols.; atlas of plates, Paris 1891)Google Scholar. The Pomar drawings are also discussed and illustrated by Thompson, J. Eric S., “The missing illustrations of the Pomar relación,” Carnegie Institution of Washington, Notes on Middle American Archaeology I, No. 4, pp. 15–21. (Washington, 1941)Google Scholar.

11 There seem to be no known surviving prose annals of Coatlinchan; the only pictorial document attributed to that area is the “Mapa de Coatlinchan,” a 16th century cartographic depiction on native paper, showing 68 glossed cabeceras, barrios, and estancias; it is Item 35–16 in the codex collection of the Museo Nacional de Antropología (México).

12 Francisco del Paso y Troncoso secured a photographic copy of BNP/FM 254. Wigberto Jiménez Moreno described this and noted that it had been used by Torquemada, Alva Ixtlilxochitl, and Muñoz Camargo; seemingly it was also annotated by Veytia. In, Zavala, Silvio, Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, su misión en Europa, 1892–1916 (Mexico City, 1938) pp. 575–76 Google Scholar. Jiménez Moreno here reversed the view expressed earlier by de la Rosa, Vicente y Saldivar, , “Juicio . . . ., 1791,” Documentos inéditos para la historia de España, V, 93–109 (Madrid, 1847)Google Scholar that the Nahuatl MS. was a native translation of portions of MI, Book 3, caps. 6, 12–19 (loc. cit., pp. 104–105), by stating “Torquemada se servio fielmente de este texto” (p. 576). Gibson, Charles, Tlaxcala in the sixteenth century (New Haven, 1952), pp. 261–63 Google Scholar, discusses this source with further bibliography. Complexities of BNP 254 are increased by its still obscure relationships to another closely related document, “Historia y fundación de la ciudad de Tlaxcala y sus cuatro cabeceras,” also similar to Torquemada MI, Book 3, caps. 6, 12–19. Gibson, op. cit., pp. 257–58, discussed it, and concluded on basis of his comparisons that the “Historia” was probably a Nahuatl translation of Torquemada who, in the relevant passages, had utilized Muñoz Camargo. Pichardo’s copy of the Boturini manuscript of the “Historia “is BNP 290; copies are also found as BNP/FM 418 and Bancroft Library, Mexican Manuscripts, 231. Chavero, Alfredo, Anónimo Mexicano (México, 1903 Google Scholar), published chapters 1–5 in Nahuatl with chapters 1–3 in Spanish translation from a manuscript similar to BNP 254. Chapters 4–5 of the “Anónimo,” a Spanish translation of chapters 4–5 of BNP 254 by Mariano Rojas (whose complete translation is in the Archivo Histórico of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología, Mexico), and the Nahuatl of the parallel passages of the “Historia “were published in Hasler, Juan A., ed., “Anónimo Mexicano: paleografia,” Archivos Nahuas (Jalapa, Ver.), Tom. 1, fase. 2 (1958), pp. 303–23 Google Scholar. Chapters 6–11 of the Anónimo (BNP 254) have not been published, hence the extent to which Torquemada may have used them is still undetermined. The authorship and details of this important anonymous Nahuatl text, utilized and translated by Torquemada, and later re-translated in Nahuatl by Loaysa, remains to be studied.

13 Gibson, Tlaxcala, p. 239. See previous Note for BNP 254.

14 See Note 8. A variant partial translation is provided by Angel María K., Garibay, “Relato de la conquista por un autor anònimo de Tlatelolco, redactado en 1528, versión directa del Nahuatl,” in his edition of the Historia General de las cosas de Nueva España, escrita por Bernardino de Sahagún y fundada en la documentación en lengua mexicana recogida por los mismos naturales (4 vols.; Mexico City, 1956), IV, 167–85 Google Scholar. The writer has tentatively identified the Indian author of the 1528 relación as Lucas Cortés.