Мексиканың испандықтар келгенге дейінгі халықтары

Populations existing prior to the arrival of the Spanish

Indigenous peoples of Mexico (lang es), Native Mexicans (lang es) or Mexican Native Americans (lang es), are those who are part of communities that trace their roots back to populations and communities that existed in what is now Mexico before the arrival of Europeans. The number of indigenous Mexicans is defined through the second article of the Mexican Constitution. The Mexican census does not classify individuals by race, using the cultural ethnicity of indigenous communities that preserve their indigenous languages, traditions, beliefs, and cultures. As a result, the count of indigenous peoples in Mexico does not include those of mixed indigenous and European heritage who have not preserved their indigenous cultural practices. Genetic studies have found that most Mexicans are of partial indigenous heritage. According to the National Indigenous Institute (INI) and the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (CDI), in 2012 the indigenous population was approximately 15 million people, divided into 68 ethnic groups. The 2020 Censo General de Población y Vivienda reported 11,132,562 people living in households where someone speaks an indigenous language, and 23,232,391 people who were identified as indigenous based on self identification. The indigenous population is distributed throughout the territory of Mexico but is especially concentrated in the Sierra Madre del Sur, the Yucatán Peninsula, the Sierra Madre Oriental, the Sierra Madre Occidental, and neighboring areas. The states with the largest indigenous population are Oaxaca and Yucatán, both having indigenous majorities, with the former having the highest percentage of indigenous population. Since the Spanish colonization, the North and Bajio regions of Mexico have had lower percentages of indigenous peoples, but some notable groups include the Rarámuri, the Tepehuán, the Yaquis, and the Yoreme.

The prehispanic civilizations of what now is known as Mexico are often divided into two regions: Mesoamerica, the cultural area where several complex civilizations developed before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century, and Aridoamerica (or simply "The North"), the arid region north of the Tropic of Cancer which was less densely populated. Despite the conditions, the Mogollon culture and peoples established urban population centers at Casas Grandes and Cuarenta Casas in a vast territory that encompassed northern Chihuahua state and parts of Arizona and New Mexico in the United States. Mesoamerica was densely populated by diverse indigenous ethnic groups which, although sharing common cultural characteristics, spoke different languages and developed unique civilizations. One of the most influential civilizations in Mesoamerica was the Olmec civilization, sometimes referred to as the "Mother Culture of Mesoamerica". The Maya civilization, influenced by other Mesoamerican civilizations, developed a vast cultural region in southeast Mexico and northern Central America, while the Zapotec and Mixtec cultures dominated the valley of Oaxaca and the Purépecha in western Mexico.

Scholars agree that significant systems of trading existed between the cultures of Mesoamerica, Aridoamerica and the American Southwest, and the architectural remains and artifacts share a commonality of knowledge attributed to this trade network. The routes stretched far into Mesoamerica and reached as far north as ancient communities that included such population centers in the United States such as Snaketown, Chaco Canyon, and Ridge Ruin near Flagstaff (considered some of the finest artifacts ever located).

By the time of the arrival of the Spanish in central Mexico, many peoples of Mesoamerica (with the notable exception of the Tlaxcaltecs and the Purépecha Kingdom of Michoacán) were loosely joined under the Aztec Empire, the last Nahua civilization to flourish in Central Mexico. The capital of the empire, Tenochtitlan, became one of the largest urban centers in the world, with an estimated population of 350,000 inhabitants. and often rebelled, the paternalistic structure of colonial rule supported the continued existence and structure of indigenous communities. The Spanish crown recognized the existing ruling group, gave protection to the land holdings of indigenous communities, and communities and individuals had access to the Spanish legal system. However, these codes were often ignored in practice, and racial discrimination was prevalent in New Spain. In the religious sphere, indigenous men were banned from Christian priesthood, following an early Franciscan attempt that included fray Bernardino de Sahagún to train an indigenous group. Mendicants of the Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian orders initially evangelized indigenous in their own communities in what is often called the "spiritual conquest". On the northern frontiers, the Spanish created missions and settled Indigenous populations in these complexes, which prompted raids from those who resisted settlement (given the name Indios Bárbaros). The Jesuits were prominent in this enterprise until their expulsion from Spanish America in 1767. Catholicism, often with local characteristics, was the only permissible religion in the colonial era.

During the early colonial era in central Mexico, Spaniards were more interested in access to indigenous labor than land ownership. The institution of the encomienda, a crown grant of the labor of indigenous communities to conquerors was a key element of the imposition of Spanish rule. The Spanish crown initially maintained the indigenous sociopolitical system of local rulers and land tenure, with the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire eliminating the superstructure of rule, and replacing it with Spanish. The crown had several concerns about the encomienda. First was that the holders of encomiendas, called encomenderos, were becoming too powerful, essentially a seigneurial group that might challenge crown power (as shown in the conspiracy by conqueror Hernán Cortés's legitimate son and heir). The second was that the encomenderos were monopolizing indigenous labor, excluding newly arriving Spaniards. And third, the crown was concerned about the damage to the indigenous vassals and their communities by the institution. Through the New Laws of 1542, the crown sought to phase out the encomienda and replace it with another crown mechanism of forced indigenous labor, the repartimiento. Indigenous labor was no longer monopolized by a small group of conquerors and their descendants but apportioned to a larger group of Spaniards. Through the repartimiento, indigenous peoples were obligated to perform low paid labor for a certain number of weeks or months on Spanish enterprises, notably silver mining. The land of indigenous peoples is used for material reasons as well as spiritual reasons. Religious, cultural, social, spiritual, and other events relating to their identity are also tied to the land. Indigenous people use collective property so that the aforementioned services that the land provides are available to the entire community and future generations. When Mexico gained independence in 1821, the casta designations were eliminated as a legal structure, but racial divides remained. White Mexicans argued about what the solution was to the "Indian Problem", that is indigenous who continued to live in communities and were not integrated politically or socially as citizens of the new republic. The Mexican Constitution of 1824 has several articles pertaining to indigenous peoples.

The Mexican War of Independence was a decade long struggle ending in 1821, in which indigenous peoples participated for their own motivations. The new country was named after its capital city, Mexico City. The new flag had at its center a symbol of the Aztecs, an eagle perched on a nopal cactus. Mexico declared the abolition of slavery in 1829 and the equality of all citizens before the law in 1857. Indigenous communities continued to have rights as corporations to maintain land holdings until the liberal Reforma. Some indigenous individuals integrated into Mexican society, like Benito Juárez of Zapotec ethnicity, the first indigenous president in the Americas. Juárez supported the removal of provisions protecting indigenous communal land holdings through the Lerdo law. In the North of Mexico, indigenous peoples, such as the Comanche and Apache, who had acquired the horse, waged a successful warfare against the Mexican state. The Comanche controlled considerable territory, called the Comancheria. The Yaqui also had a long tradition of resistance, with the late nineteenth century leader Cajemé being prominent during the Yaqui Wars. The Mayo joined their Yaqui neighbors in rebellion after 1867. In Yucatán, Mayas waged a protracted war against local Mexican control in the Caste War of Yucatán, which was most intensely fought in 1847 and lasted until 1915.

The Mexican Revolution, a violent social and cultural movement that defined 20th century Mexico, produced a nationalist sentiment that the indigenous peoples were the foundation of Mexican society in a movement known as indigenismo. Several prominent artists promoted the "Indigenous Sentiment" (sentimiento indigenista) of the country, including Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Throughout the twentieth century, the government established bilingual education in some indigenous communities and published free bilingual textbooks. Some states of the federation appropriated an indigenous inheritance in order to reinforce their identity. In spite of the official recognition of indigenous peoples, the economic underdevelopment of their communities, accentuated by the crises of the 1980s and 1990s, has not allowed for the development of most indigenous communities. Thousands of indigenous Mexicans have emigrated to urban centers in Mexico and the United States. In Los Angeles, for example, the Mexican government has established electronic access to some of the consular services provided in Spanish as well as Zapotec and Mixe. Some of the Maya peoples of Chiapas have revolted, demanding better social and economic opportunities, requests voiced by the EZLN. The Chiapas conflict of 1994 led to collaboration between the Mexican government and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, a libertarian socialist indigenous political group. This movement generated international media attention and united many indigenous groups. In 1996 the San Andrés Larráinzar Accords were negotiated between the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and the Mexican government.

The history of linguistic rights in Mexico began when the Spanish first made contact with Indigenous Languages during the colonial period. Beginning in the early sixteenth century, mestizaje, the mixing of races and cultures, led to the mixing of languages as well. By the seventeenth century, the elite minority were Spanish speakers. The final section also sanctioned the creation of a National Institute for Indigenous Languages (INALI) whose purpose is to promote the growth of indigenous languages in Mexico. Indigenous traditions have been used as a pretext by the Mexican government to deny rights to indigenous women, such as the right to own land. Additionally, violence against women has been regarded by the Mexican government as a cultural practice. Reproductive justice is an important issue to indigenous communities because there is a lack of development in these areas and is less access to maternal care. Conditional cash transfer programs such as Oportunidades have been used to encourage indigenous women to seek formal health care.

Generally, indigenous Mexicans are poorer than non indigenous Mexicans, though social development varies between states, different indigenous ethnicities, and between rural and urban areas. In all states, indigenous people have higher infant mortality, and in some states, almost double that of the non indigenous populations. Some indigenous groups, particularly the Yucatec Maya in the Yucatán Peninsula and some of the Nahua and Otomi peoples in central states have maintained higher levels of development while indigenous peoples in states such as the Guerrero or Michoacán are ranked drastically lower than the average Mexican citizen in these fields. Despite certain indigenous groups such as the Maya or Nahua retaining high levels of development, the general indigenous population lives at a lower level of development than the general population. Literacy rates are much lower for the indigenous, particularly in the southwestern states of Guerrero and Oaxaca due lack of access to education and a lack of educational literature available in indigenous languages. Literacy rates are also much lower, with 27% of indigenous children between 6 and 14 being illiterate compared to a national average of 12% in 2000. That is, less than half of those identified as indigenous. 6,695,228 people 5 years or older were tallied as indigenous language speakers in the 2010 census, an increase of about 650,000 from the 2000 census. In 2000, 6,044,547 people 5 years or older spoke an indigenous language. In previous censuses, information on the indigenous speaking population five years of age and older was obtained from the Mexican people. However, in the 2010 census, this approach was changed and the Government also began to collect data on people 3 years and older. With this new approach, it was determined that there were 6,913,362 people 3 years of age or more who spoke an indigenous language (218,000 children 3 and 4 four years of age fell into this category), accounting for 6.6% of the total population. The population of children aged 0 to 2 years in homes where the head of household or a spouse spoke an indigenous language was 678 954. The indigenous language speaking population has been increasing in absolute numbers for decades, but have nonetheless been falling in proportion to the national population. but smaller than the 2015 census estimate of 25,694,928 (21.5%). Indigenous peoples are also more likely to live in rural areas, but many reside in urban or suburban areas, particularly in the central states of Mexico, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Mexico City and the Yucatán Peninsula. According to the CDI, the states with the greatest percentage of indigenous population are: Yucatán, with 65.40%, Quintana Roo with 44.44% and Campeche with 44.54% of the population being indigenous, most of them Maya; Oaxaca with 65.73% of the population, the most numerous groups being the Mixtec and Zapotec peoples; Chiapas has 36.15%, the majority being Tzeltal and Tzotzil Maya; Hidalgo with 36.21%, the majority being Otomi; Puebla with 35.28%, and Guerrero with 33.92%, mostly Nahua people and the states of San Luis Potosí and Veracruz both home to a population of 19% indigenous people, mostly from the Totonac, Nahua and Teenek (Huastec) groups. Rank State Percent Indigenous (2020)! 31.2%2 65.18% 23.7%3 47.26% 10.4%4 36.79% 28.2%5 36.65% 12.3%6 33.23% 11.7% 7 33.22% 9.9% 8 33.14% 15.5%9 26.90% 8.6%10 24.55% 2.0%11 21.36% 4.0%12 20.75% 3.4%13 20.33% 8.6% 19.41%14 16.46% 2.2%15 15.94% 5.9%16 15.75% 2.6%17 13.31% 2.2%18 13.17% 0.8%19 13.15% 1.4%20 11.87% 1.8%21 10.48% 3.1%22 9.35% 1.4%23 9.28% 1.5%24 8.87% 2.7%25 7.97% 1.4%26 7.04% 1.2%27 6.67% 0.7% 28 6.40% 1.4%29 6.39% 0.3%30 6.17% 0.2%31 4.88% 0.7% 32 2.13% 0.2%

The anthropologist and chef Raquel Torres Cerdán has recorded and ensured the preservation of many of the indigenous cuisines of Veracruz.

Duverger, Christian (1999): Mesoamérica, arte y antropología. CONACULTA Landucci Editores. Paris. Miller, Mary Ellen. (2001). El arte de mesoamérica. "Colecciones El mundo del arte". Ediciones Destino. Barcelona, España. .

Flores, René D.; Loría, María Vignau; Casas, Regina Martínez (2023). "Transitory versus Durable Boundary Crossing: What Explains the Indigenous Population Boom in Mexico?". American Journal of Sociology. 129 (1): 123–161.