The Struggle of Indigenous Peoples to Access Justice in Colonial Mexico and Brazil

In my doctoral research, I compare how Indigenous peoples in colonial Brazil and Mexico accessed justice. Although my entire doctoral project focuses on Brazil and Mexico, for this preliminary phase, I intend to conduct exploratory research in a particular section of the Archivo General de la Nación (AGN) in Mexico City, called Indios. This section houses a vast archive on Indigenous peoples in colonial Mexico, and I am looking for lawsuits filed by Indigenous litigants. Methodologically, I employ a comparative approach because Luso-Brazilian historiography on justice has paid more attention to colonial elites than to Indigenous litigants. In this sense, the historiography on colonial Mexico is a source of methodological inspiration for expanding Brazilian historiography. However, as I seek original work, I wish to find new documentary evidence in the AGN to help me write an original comparative work.