Tamemes: the prohibition of human porterage in New Spain, 1528-1549

Mesoamerica moved its freight on people's backs, and the Spaniards who arrived kept the system running. Between 1528 and 1549 the crown banned it outright, was lobbied into licensing it under conditions, and then banned it again — this time even where the carrier said he was willing. A Franciscan chronicler prints the sequence with its dates and penalties, and in the same chapter says the orders were not kept. A judge of the audiencia of Mexico describes what continued anyway.