The Map of Cuitlahuac from 1656. A struggle for the distribution of the resources of the Sierra de Santa Catarina

Abstract

Cuitlahuac was an old señoríoin the south of Mexico City that today is known as Tláhuac. Because of its location, on an island in the middle of Lake Chalco, it was barely able to survive in the Colonial period, when the land from which it previously received tribute only acquired a commercial value. It was then when a series of litigations between the cabeceraand its subject towns which were settled on the bank of the lake, at the feet of the Mountain range of Santa Catarina, began. The struggle was for the control of some earth, as well as of the tezontle quarries. The map of 1656 was drawn up in that context, on the occasion of one of the many eye sights that were made in the area.