The privileges of Tlaxcala in the law of the Indies
Laws of the Recopilación set the Tlaxcalan republic apart from every other indigenous polity in New Spain: its own ordinances of 1545 confirmed, its Indian governors required to be natives of the province, its people freed from serving the Spaniards of Puebla, exempt from tribute, and licensed to write to the king without the viceroy stopping the letter. The same code states the crown's motive and pierces the exemption in a levy of 1591.
Why this wins its question: Tlaxcala usually appears in English as a footnote to the conquest of Mexico — the allies who helped Cortés — and almost never as what it became: a chartered indigenous republic whose ordinances the crown confirmed, whose Indian governors had to be born in the province, whose Spanish magistrate was retitled to match its rank, whose people were legally exempt from tribute and from serving Puebla, and which could write to the king over the viceroy's head. The six laws that say so are quoted here from a digitised printing opened page by page, together with the 1591 levy that overrode the tribute exemption and the friar's own note that the province was very poor — so the privileges are on the record with their price and their motive.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
Tlaxcala has its own run of laws inside libro VI, título I "De los Indios". Ley xxxviij (Philip II, Poblete, 16 April, and Zaragoza, 25 March 1585) orders the viceroys of New Spain to honour and favour "á los Indios de Tlaxcala, y á su Ciudad, y República", "Teniendo consideracion á que los Indios de Tlaxcala fuéron de los primeros que en la Nueva España recibiéron la Santa Fe Católica, y nos diéron la obediencia", and that the viceroys summon them to burials, honours and exequies of princes, to reseñas, "socorros, y ayudas en las necesidades que se ofrecen, y otros actos públicos".
The crown states its own motive in the same law, and it is not disinterested: the viceroys are to take "mucha cuenta con su Ciudad, y República, para que viendo los demas la merced que les hacemos, nos sirvan con la misma fidelidad". The privileges are held up as an advertisement to other indigenous polities.
Ley xxxx (Madrid, 26 April 1563; Barcelona, 10 May 1585) confirms the province's own law. "LOS principales, y Caciques de las quatro Cabeceras de Tlaxcala nos suplicáron por merced que se les guardasen sus antiguas costumbres para conservacion de aquella Provincia, Ciudad, y República, conforme á las ordenanzas dadas por el Gobierno de la Nueva España el año de mil quinientos y quarenta y cinco, confirmadas por provision Real"; the crown finds them "muy justas, y convenientes", notes the city "se halla quieta y pacifica", and approves and confirms them anew, with orders that nothing contravene them "en ninguna forma".
Ley xxxxj (Poblete, 17 April 1585) raises the rank of the office: "Haciendo particular memoria del buen zelo, y fidelidad, que tienen á nuestro servicio los Indios de Tlaxcala á imitacion de sus pasados, y á que es aquella Ciudad la mas principal de la Nueva España", the crown orders that the alcalde mayor "se intitule Gobernador", that this form be kept in the titles despatched, and that men of quality, experience, "antiguos en la tierra", be appointed to it.
Ley xxxxij reserves the indigenous governorship to Tlaxcalans. "POR una de las ordenanzas de Tlaxcala está dispuesto, que el Gobernador de los Indios no sea extraño; y porque conviene á la conservacion de aquella República, mandamos á los Vireyes, que provean por Gobernadores á Indios principales, naturales de ella, como siempre se ha observado, sin permitir, ni dar lugar á que los gobierne ningun Indio de otra Provincia."
Ley xxxxiiij (Lisbon, 10 December 1582; Denia, 15 February 1594) enforces an exemption from labour service. By royal cédula of 1539 it had been promised the Indians of Tlaxcala that after four years they would serve no longer the Spanish vecinos of the Ciudad de los Ángeles, confirmed in 1563 "por los servicios que hiciéron en la pacificacion de aquellas Provincias"; the viceroy is commanded not to compel them to serve "en el Valle de Atrisco, Ciudad de los Ángeles, ni otra parte alguna". A privilege re-confirmed twice across forty-five years is also evidence that it was being ignored.
Ley xxxxv gives the province a direct channel to the monarch: "SI á los Indios de Tlaxcala se ofrecieren negocios importantes á nuestro Real servicio, y bien de su República, de que convenga avisarnos, ó recibieren algunos agravios: Es nuestra voluntad, que con libertad puedan ocurrir ante Nos, y escribirnos libremente lo que por bien tuvieren, y el Virey, Audiencia, Jueces, y Justicias no se lo impidan." The right of petition is stated against the local authorities, who are forbidden to obstruct it.
The tribute exemption is confirmed and pierced in the same sentence. Libro VI, título V, ley xvj (Philip II, El Pardo, 1 November 1591) imposes, "A causa de las públicas necesidades", a service above the ordinary tribute — a fifth in Peru, Nuevo Reino and Tierra Firme, four reales a head in New Spain and Guatemala — and rules that "aunque los Indios de la Provincia de Tlaxcala, por privilegio particular, son exêntos de pagar tributo, es justo, que por ser este servicio de necesidad, y causa pública, en que todos generalmente son interesados, contribuyan sin exêncion, como lo hacen todos los demas en qualquiera forma exêntos."
Ley xxxxiij bans the wine monopolies and public butcheries in the city and province, ordering that these be auctioned in the city itself before "la Justicia, y Regimiento, como se acostumbra en las Ciudades de estos Reynos" — the same municipal form as a Castilian town, and a source of revenue kept in Tlaxcalan hands.
The four-part structure the laws presuppose is described at first hand by a friar who lived there. Motolinía's chapter on the province states that "Está Tlaxcallan partida en cuatro cabezas ó señorios", names the oldest as Tepeticpac, "que quiere decir encima de sierra", and the second as Ocotelolco, where "estaba el principal capitan de toda Tlaxcallan, hombre valeroso y esforzado que se llamó Maxiscatzin, el cual recibió á los Españoles y les mostró mucho amor, y les favoreció en toda la conquista que hicieron en toda esta Nueva España". Of the province as a whole he writes that "El señor y la gente de esta provincia anduvieron siempre con el marques del Valle y con los Españoles que con él vinieron en la primera conquista, hasta que toda la tierra tuvieron de paz y asosegada."
The privileges rest on that alliance — an alliance against other indigenous polities — and they did not make Tlaxcala prosperous. The same chapter records that the province "solian salir cien mil hombres de pelea", and then that "la gente de ella es bien dispuesta, y la que en toda la tierra mas ejercitada era en las cosas de la guerra: es la gente mucha y muy pobre, porque de solo el maiz que cogen se han de mantener y vestir, y pagar los tributos". The wording is Joaquín García Icazbalceta's 1858 printing from manuscript, not an autograph.
What these laws prove is what the crown ordered, not what Tlaxcala received. The compilation of 1680, read here in the 1791 fourth impression, gathers orders spanning 1539 to 1594 and repeats several of them; the exemption from serving Puebla had to be commanded three times, and the tribute exemption was overridden by a general levy within seven years of its last confirmation.