Chimalpahin’s education was independent of the Colegio, but he was acquainted with a Nahua intellectual circle (Anderson and Schroeder 1997, 6) as he mentions them in his works. In his dual role of author and copyist he wrote in Nahuatl eight Relaciones, a Diario, the Anales Tepanecas, a Crónica mexicana, and other works. He also contributed to the Crónica mexicayotl, and wrote in Spanish a Historia mexicana and a Conquista de México. This last narrative is Chimalpahin’s version of the second part of Francisco López de Gómara’s Historia de las Indias, known as La crónica de la Nueva España (1552) (Schroeder 1991, 21).7 His contribution to the ethnohistory of pre-conquest and colonial Mexico has been recognized to be second only to that of Sahagún’s. But unlike Sahagún’s works, his histories furnish a firsthand, personal perspective of the Indigenous world (Schroeder 1991, xv). His Relaciones seem to have been the result of compilations ordered by the viceroy Antonio de Mendoza to one of his relatives. However, it was not until 1620 that an uncle asked him to finish the work (Schroeder 1991; 9). Unlike Tezozomoc, Chimalpahin was of a lesser social status but he did the best he could to present himself as a reliable writer. The circumstances of his life as a copyist are not known, but he wrote the largest and most distinguished corpus of annalistic history known to have been produced by a Nahua of any time period (Lockhart 1992, 387).
A connection between Tezozomoc and Chimalpahin is revealed in the Crónica mexicayotl. Since the earliest manuscript is in Chimalpahin’s handwriting, it is believed that he was the copyist but he also included some parts of his own (Anderson and Schroeder 1997, 8). However, recent research has raised interesting theories that seem to suggest that the Crónica mexicayotl could indeed have been a version of his Crónica mexicana.8 History for Tezozomoc and Chimalpahin is viewed as the work of a collective effort from different genres and modes. Tezozomoc’s role in this Crónica seems to be that of the main authority who, by his prestige and nobility, has the recognition to authenticate all the sources and testimonies he presents. That some were still orally transmitted or pictographically represented is revealed in the constant use of sensory verbs such as “hear” and “see.” Since local histories focus on the unique qualities of the individual’s altepetl, for Chimalpahin the Mexica’s account needed to be edited. An ancient rivalry and resentment toward the Mexicas by the Chalcas is revealed in his “correcting” the Mexicas’ story with that of his own altepetl Chalco-Amaquemecan, which he constantly exalts in his histories (47–9). When it came to defend one’s altepetl, as was the case of the Tlatelolcans in Book XII, Chimalpahin’s interaction in this text is another example of local histories competing against each other.
A sense of urgency to keep to tradition while securing vestigial positions of high status within the colonial system is perceived in the Indigenous written histories (Anderson and Schroeder 1997, 6). By the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Tezozomoc and Chimalpahin wrote, colonial society was becoming more complex. The European presence was strengthening and mixed ethnic groups were growing while Indigenous people were declining in great numbers owing to epidemics. Noble Indigenous people were losing their status through the infiltrations of macehuales (non-noble Indigenous people) who were becoming señores principales (Gruzinski 1993, 64–65).
Social and demographic changes would also open the domain of local native histories to secondary-status nobles, such as Chimalpahin, or to non-noble Indigenous people and mestizos. The writer Cristóbal Del Castillo, whom Jesuit Horacio Carochi (1579–1662) identifies as a mestizo, might fall into these categories. If indeed he was a mestizo, unlike other mestizos, who wrote in Spanish, he writes both Historia de la venida de los mexicanos y de otros pueblos, and Historia de la conquista in Nahuatl, and there is not enough information about this writer to know to what social class he belonged (Navarrete Linares 2001, 76). He neither identifies himself as belonging to a particular altepetl, nor traces his genealogy as a source of authority as other Indigenous and mestizo writers do. Although he writes about the Mexicas, he does not provide information to conclude that he belonged to that altepetl (Navarrete Linares 2001, 76–77). Unlike Tezozomoc or Chimalpahin, whose role is to authenticate the ancient word, Del Castillo’s Historia seems to be the interpretation of an outsider who had access to the oral, pictographic, and written corpus of the Mexicas’ collective memory. Because his Historia shares some dates and events with that of Sahagún’s Book XII of the Florentine Codex, and because there is evidence in his text that he knew the Coloquios, it is probable that he was in close contact with the Franciscans, and most likely, he received his education in one of their institutions (Navarrete Linares 2001, 64–77). However, that he is mentioned by the Jesuit Carochi is an indication that his Historia became part of the manuscripts collected by the Jesuits’ circle initiated by Tovar.
From the middle of the seventeenth century (ca. 1662) to 1692, the noble Nahua Tlaxcalan from the Quiahuiztlan region, Don Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza (1600?–1689?), wrote his Historia cronológica de la noble ciudad de Tlaxcala. Written in Nahuatl and mainly in the annals format, this narrative is yet another case of historiographic production on local histories by a Nahua noble author. Zapata y Mendoza, who held several administrative positions, even that of governor, delivers a chronological account on Tlaxcala’s pre-Hispanic past (ca. 1310) as well as first-hand accounts on colonial Tlaxcala to 1689 (Lockhart 1992, 391; Townsend 2016). In his Historia cronológica Zapata y Mendoza mentions important intellectual Tlaxcalans such as Tadeo de Niza and Diego Muñoz Camargo. However, Zapata y Mendoza wrote only in Nahuatl using exclusively Indigenous sources. The xiuhpohualli or annal tradition in the Tlaxcalan/Puebla region is “genetically related” since they borrowed material from each other (Townsend 2016, 137). It seems that Zapata y Mendoza also collected his sources by interviewing friends and neighbors, during his trips to Mexico City or from his own archives (ibid). As did other writers of xiuhpohualli or annals, he begins by naming elected officials but he also includes quotidian events, processions, political events and everything that was important or significant to notice and record (Townsend 2016, 138). With the stories Zapata y Mendoza brings together, he leaves testimony of the Tlaxcalan origins and their rights. “His writings provided a window into the world of Indigenous ‘negotiation with domination’ and paint a dynamic picture of how Tlaxcalan elites…shaped and responded to the rapidly changing social and political landscape of colonial Mexico” (McDonough 2014, 63).9
Although we have no evidence that Zapata y Mendoza’s Historia was produced within the Franciscans or Jesuits circles, the amendments and interventions by another Nahua author, who had been a cacique and was later a secular priest, Don Manuel de los Santos y Salazar (?-1715), certainly put the Historia within an intellectual ecclesiastical circle by an ordained Nahua. An acquaintance of Zapata y Mendoza, Santos y Salazar was from Quiahuiztlan, also a region from Tlaxacala. An intellectual himself, Santos y Salazar had already written Cómputo cronológico de los indios mexicanos, a history about early Tlaxcalans based on printed works. Santos y Salazar was also involved in the production of the drama La invención de la Santa Cruz por Santa Elena and did the compilation for the