Maps of congregaciones and Geographic Information Systems (GIS): clues to understand the reconfiguration of colonial territory

Abstract

Throughout several moments during the Sixteenth century, the Crown carried out initiatives to reconfigure the pattern of indigenous settlement in New Spain in order to adapt it to their civil and religious administrative needs. The process of congregaciones, developed from 1595 on, was accompanied by the commission of making paintings that reflect certain aspects of their territory. Today, those maps are very useful to verify the potential changes and continuities made in their environment from this territorial reconfiguration program. This paper aims to provide some clues to the analysis of such changes and continuities through the study of some of the maps made during the stage known as congregaciones civiles, according to their particular context of production and using the tools that provide us the modern Geographic Information Systems (GIS).