Urban Plan, Architecture, and the Geography of the Sacred in Colonial Morelos - (European Expansion and Indigenous Response) (Hardcover)

About the Book

This study analyses the urban plan of indigenous communities in 16th-century central Mexico within the Mesoamerican concept of sacred geography, and the construction of doctrina (mission) complexes used in evangelization by Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians.

Book Synopsis

In the sixteenth century, Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian missionaries attempted to evangelize the indigenous peoples of central Mexico. Indigenous peoples incorporated the new faith into their belief system on their own terms, and continued to conceptualize a sacred geography that ordered their world and regulated time. At the same time, the missionaries had new sacred complexes built, but the question remains, why did indigenous peoples dedicate labor and community resources to these projects? This study analyzes the urban plan of indigenous communities, the construction of new sacred complexes, and the ways in which the urban plan conformed to the notion of sacred geography.