“Mercedes” maps of Calpan

Abstract

The colonial maps of Spanish-Indian tradition were a legal document that had an administrative function. By this reason, they did not have a scientific exhaustiveness. Some of these maps are now in the Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico) and are a valuable source for the reconstruction of certain historical spaces. The objective of this article is to contextualize and reconstruct the geographic space of a pueblo de indios, Calpan, in the 16th century. We analyze two maps of the same region, that were elaborated in nearby dates, but are aesthetically distinct. Through other documents and field work, we did.