Ethelia Ruiz Medrano – författare

Ensayo histórico que analiza los momentos sociales, políticos y religiosos más importantes del estado de Guanajuato desde la época prehispánica, dando cuenta de la riqueza cultural de sus primeros pobladores, pasando por la época de la Conquista y dar cuenta del auge económico de la localidad, para llegar a los primeros movimientos sociales insurgentes y colocar al Estado como la cuna del movimiento de Independencia; para terminar con las luchas políticas entre la Iglesia y el Estado.

A rich and detailed account of indigenous history in central and southern Mexico from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries, Mexico's Indigenous Communities is an expansive work that destroys the notion that Indians were victims of forces beyond their control and today have little connection with their ancient past. Indian communities continue to remember and tell their own local histories, recovering and rewriting versions of their past in light of their lived present.Ethelia Ruiz Medrano focuses on a series of individual cases, falling within successive historical epochs, that illustrate how the practice of drawing up and preserving historical documents-in particular, maps, oral accounts, and painted manuscripts-has been a determining factor in the history of Mexico's Indian communities for a variety of purposes, including the significant issue of land and its rightful ownership. Since the sixteenth century, numerous Indian pueblos have presented colonial and national courts with historical evidence that defends their landholdings.Because of its sweeping scope, groundbreaking research, and the author's intimate knowledge of specific communities, Mexico's Indigenous Communities is a unique and exceptional contribution to Mexican history. It will appeal to students and specialists of history, indigenous studies, ethnohistory, and anthropology of Latin America and Mexico

Originally published in Mexico as Gobierno y Sociedad en Nueva Espana, Ethelia Ruiz Medrano's seminal study Reshaping New Spain is now available in an updated English edition.Drawing on extensive archival research, Ruiz examines the developing colonial institutions in Mexico and how they changed indigenous land ownership and labor laws to favor the new bureaucrats. This portrait of the emerging government in New Spain fills a critical niche in Latin American studies.