Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs

by Camilla Townsend

On Sunday, April 1, the council sent guards to the church of Our Lady of Mercy where they arrested a number of black worshippers on the grounds that they had been fomenting rebellion against their Spanish masters. Chimalpahin heard all the details from someone who was there. “The sermon was being preached when the officers came,” he commented.19 Two weeks later, several edicts were read aloud by town criers all over the city. Henceforth, no black man was to carry a sword or wear a Spanish-style collar; no black woman was to wear a veil. And Spaniards owning more than two black slaves were to sell them, so that no household would have more than two black residents. No sitting viceroy would have alienated the city’s wealthiest white men in this way, but angry, lesser men were in power now. Finally, the council posted guards at all the major entries to the city, lest the maroons living to the east or west reenter the city to free their urban kin. Chimalpahin could see the guards stationed on the southern road from where he lived.20