The economy of early colonial New Mexico, AD 1598-1680: An investigation of social structure and human agency using archaeological and documentary data.

Abstract

During colonization individuals alter laws, customs, and behavioral norms because individuals interact with new social and environmental conditions. During the early colonial period of New Mexico (AD 1598--1680), New Mexico's colonists established an integrated economy in which commodities produced by indigenous peoples, settlers, and Franciscan friars, and goods manufactured as far away as China were exchanged. In doing so, social structures and values as abstract as social identity and social status or as concrete as laws regarding the sale of commodities, were actively re-negotiated. The focus of this research is on the structures guiding colonial economies and how actors modified them. While archaeologists and historians have investigated early colonial New Mexico, we lack a descriptive framework which systematically describes household, regional and long-distance economic activities and the links among them. My research used texts and archaeological data, particularly paleoethnobotanical evidence, from LA 20,000 a 17<super>th</super> century <italic>estancia</italic> (ranch) and LA 54,000, contemporaneous deposits from Santa Fe, to construct this needed framework. These data were combined with early colonial period documents and archaeological information from other 17<super>th</super> century sites. Archaeological and documentary data suggest that colonists' households, both secular and Franciscan missions, produced many of the same commodities. Nevertheless, it is clear that individual households were not self-sufficient. Colonists obtained food and cloth from native peoples and from each other, and the regional exchange system circulated needed commodities. Some items were exchanged by barter, but social obligations such as tithing, tribute payments, and dowries, also ensured the movement of commodities. The economic elites (governors and Franciscan clergy) used commodities gathered through social obligations, direct exchange within the colony, and production from their own households to generate exports for the mining industry in Parral, Mexico. Archaeological evidence also indicates that colonists were universally able to obtain imported commodities. The imperial trade system allowed the elites to import commodities that were important for maintaining the colonists' social identity. Governors and clergy, because they were not native to the colony and were highly educated, also acted as role models for the consumption of imported commodities and the production of a Spanish society.