El “derecho municipal de los indios”, visto desde California a mediados del siglo XVIII

The title refers to the manuscript “El Derecho Real, Pontificio y Theo-Jurídico de los Yndios”, on whose scholarly edition I am currently working. Probably written in Guadalajara (Mexico) around 1750–1760 by a Jesuit with extensive missionary experience in the lands of California. The text is structured as a dictionary and is composed of 276 entries of varying length, arranged alphabetically (222 initial entries and a later supplement with 54 more), which summarize --using abundant doctrinal apparatus and personal notes-- the “privilegios de los indios”. In addition to addressing other questions about the manuscript and its authorship, the presentation aims to discuss, based on this textual foundation, what was understood by “derecho municipal de los indios” in the outer regions of New Spain in the mid-18th century, with particular attention to the formal and substantive elements that defined their status, highlighting its intrinsically subordinate nature within the framework of the Spanish colonial order.