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Brittany Alvarado

Dr. Watson

ARC-2032-02

Feb 17, 2023

In the image above found in, “Forming Spanish towns” by Wagner we can see seven

squares placed in the form of a bigger square with a space in the center, The space in the center

is meant to be a plaza however since the image isn’t labeled, we can specifically see what the

other spaces are meant to be, we can only know based on the information provided in the text. It

is the Law of indies; it looks like just a basic way of urban planning, but it is a way of planning a

town based on a grid with a mixture of streets found in European traditions and big open spaces

found in Mesoamerican culture. What isn’t shown in the image is how this type or a new form of

urban planning took place. The conquistadors had arrived in the new world seeking riches, free

land, and other things as well as bringing their beliefs, Christianity that was unknown by the

Mesoamericans. The charter mission, besides conquest, wealth, and power, was to convert the
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indigenous population, bringing it into the Spanish Catholic fold. Perhaps this served to justify

the plunder of conquest and colonization in the minds of the Spaniards1 The Spaniards, The

Friars had executed a new town in the new world consisting of buildings, homes, temples, and

palaces surrounding plazas rather than streets. The inspiration came from the Mesoamerican

open spaces that the Europeans had stumbled upon after arriving in the new world. Both groups

had open spaces yet, in Europe open spaces were primarily made of irregular shapes used in

form of churches, congregations, and the parvis but did not use those spaces specifically for

worship because they didn’t contain altars. Europeans mostly used streets to get around, not

using open spaces. The Mesoamericans made sacred spaces outdoors primarily because of their

focus on the natural world, especially the topography and the skies, but also due to the hospitable

climate and their lack of technology to build large interior spaces2 These open spaces were used

by Mesoamericans to roam freely and transverse to arrive at their destinations. The image above

shows the cross-cultural borrowing of both the streets and plazas created for a new form of

Spanish town after the fall of Tenochtitlan. The plan consisted of laying out streets in a grid

1
Wagner, Logan, Susan Kline Morehead, and Hal Box. Ancient Origins of the Mexican

Plaza from Primordial Sea to Public Space. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013.

2
Wagner, Logan, Susan Kline Morehead, and Hal Box. Ancient Origins of the Mexican Plaza

from Primordial Sea to Public Space. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013.
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pattern emanating from a central open space known by the Spanish term plaza.3 The law of

indies was an established way of urban planning surrounding a plaza with specific parameters

dimensions, organizations, and orientation of the layouts. These already-established open spaces

used by Mesoamericans for rituals or ceremonies were incorporated into these towns. Following

this would lead you to a town looking like the image above. As I have mentioned before what

motivated the forming of these Spanish towns was the Christianizing of the Mesoamericans, they

were determined to convert most of the indigenous population to incorporate churches in the new

towns using the already existing ceremonial spaces to convert them. Surrounding these new

homes, buildings, and Christian temples in already existing open spaces in the new town helped

the effort of converting the native population.

3
Wagner, Logan, Susan Kline Morehead, and Hal Box. Ancient Origins of the Mexican Plaza

from Primordial Sea to Public Space. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013.