QUIROGA: a MEXICAN MTJNICIPIO — BRAND 



101 



Practically all of the time from 1822 until 1874 

 the Municipio de Tzintzuiitzan had embraced the 

 pueblos of Ihuatzio and Cucuchucho and de- 

 pendent haciendas and ranchos on the Gulf of 

 Ihuatzio side of the peninsula of Tariacuri, but 

 only Tzintzuntzan and associated communities 

 just to the south and east of Quiroga were trans- 

 ferred in 1874. The remainder of the old Municipio 

 de Tzintzuntzan was attached to Patzcuaro until 

 the municipio was reconstituted in 1930. Because 

 Cocupao-Quiroga was a dependency of Tzintzunt- 

 zan in colonial times, and because northern Tzint- 

 zuntzan was a dependency of Quiroga durmg most 

 of recent time (1874-1930), there is some uncer- 

 tainty concerning the original (pre-1874) status of 

 some of the dependent ranchos. Furthermore, 

 there never has been a law or official demarcation 

 of the e.xact boundaries of the municipios and 

 their dependent tenencias. The national statistical 

 code of 1889 required that every municipio 

 possess in duplicate a map of its territorial exten- 

 sion, and also the measurements of all private 

 properties, but no such map for Quiroga has been 

 located. Also, the municipal records show that in 

 1895 a "Piano de la Villa de Quiroga," which had 

 been requested by the Government in Morelia in 

 1892, was completed, but this also has been lost. 

 Presumably the secretary of the municipal council 

 of Quiroga made a rough sketch map of the extent 

 of the municipio in 1945 which was sent to 

 Morelia, but even that map could not be located 

 in the governmental offices. Whenever the State 

 government makes a change in the area of some 

 political unit it does so by naming the communi- 

 ties affected, and the exact boundaries are left to 

 local knowledge, tradition, and claims. Very 

 seldom are there mutually agreed upon boimdaries 

 between municipios or between any two adjoining 

 constituents of a municipio, and practically never 

 will one find jointly accepted boundary markers 

 or fences. Practically speaking, if a man owns 

 property on a disputed boundary that property 

 is considered to belong to the entity in which he 

 resides and pays taxes. In just this fashion, 

 because of changes in ownership of properties, the 

 Villa de Quiroga and its municipio have advanced 

 southward at the expense of Tzintzuntzan and 

 the rancho of Patambicho. In the 1870's Tzint- 

 zuntzan claimed lands right up to the Calle 

 Nacional exit from the Villa de Quiroga, but now 

 the boundary is considered to be one or another 



of two streams that flow into Lake Patzcuaro 

 near Patambicho. 



The exact boundaries of Quiroga and its ranchos 

 are discussed in the section on Land Settlement 

 (pp. 23-25). Here we will give merely a listing of 

 the relationships of these ranchos during the past 

 century. Unfortunately we do not possess a list 

 of the ranchos and haciendas prior to the 1860's. 

 In 1869 El Tigre, Atzimbo, Zirandangacho, 

 Patambicho, and Cuenembo belonged to Tzint- 

 zuntzan, while Icuacato, Sanambo, Caringaro and 

 La Tirimicua belonged to Quiroga. By 1910 

 Quiroga had acquired El Tigre, Atzimbo, Ziran- 

 dangacho, and also Las Pilas (which lies east of 

 Cuenembo) . After the separation of Tzintzuntzan 

 in 1930, Quiroga retained its original four ranchos 

 (one had been "lost" since the five reported in 

 1822), and also Atzimbo and Zirandangacho 

 (which may have been the fifth rancho of Mar- 

 tinez de Lejarza). Since the parish records indi- 

 cate that Atzimbo and Zirandangacho were not 

 part of the curato of Quiroga when it became inde- 

 pendent of Tzintzuntzan in 1853, these two ranchos 

 seem to be definite ac|quisitions of the past 100 

 years. In summary, it seems that the pueblos 

 of Santa Fe, San Jerdnimo, and San Andres have 

 been tenencias of Quiroga throughout the inde- 

 pendent Mexican period, and that all the depend- 

 ent ranchos (with the exoeption of Atzimbo and 

 possibly Zirandangacho) have been a part of 

 Quiroga since some date in the colonial period. 



Two other types of jurisdiction have had areas 

 that coincided fairly closely with those that we 

 have just outlined. These are the judicial and the 

 fiscal. Indian and ordinary alcaldes or judges 

 carried out local judgment during the entire 

 colonial period, and first appeal was made to the 

 alcalde mayor or his lieutenant in Patzcuaro. 

 During the period of the mtendency, with the 

 abolition of the alcaldia mayor, appeal was to the 

 senior or first alcalde in Patzcuaro. After 1822 

 and until 1863 the juez letrado de primera instancia 

 constituted the court of major jurisdiction and 

 appeal in Patzcuaro, to which cases were carried 

 from the elected alcaldes or jueces de paz in Quiroga. 

 After 1863 Quiroga tiu-ned to the judge of first 

 appeal in Morelia, excepting for brief periods 

 in 1867, 1870, and 1875. From 1868 until 1917 

 the areas of the political-economic distritos were 

 the same as those of the judicial districts, and the 

 number of the juzgados de primera instancia varied 



