Ethnohistory 62:2 (April 2015) DOI 10.1215/00141801-2854343 Copyright 2015 by American Society for Ethnohistory Witnesses to Demographic Catastrophe: Indigenous Testimony in the Relaciones Geográfcas of 1577–86 for Central Mexico Barry L. Isaac, University of Cincinnati Abstract. This article analyzes the indigenous testimony in the 1577–86 Relaciones Geográfcas for central Mexico with regard to the demographic collapse that fol- lowed the Spanish Conquest. Although asked to indicate the causes of the enormous mortality and morbidity, the native informants rarely attributed them to supernatu- ral punishment, a salient idea in both indigenous and Christian religions. Rather, their responses were overwhelmingly secular and critical of colonial policies (forced labor, strict monogamy, settlement consolidation) or consequent cultural condi- tions (dietary change, adoption of Spanish clothing). Thus the Relaciones ofer no support for the commonsense notion—still endorsed by some scholars—that the horrors of demographic collapse led the native population to readily embrace Chris- tianity and colonialism. Keywords. Epidemics, Christianization, demographic collapse, Central Mexico The early sixteenth-century Spanish Conquest of the New World precipi- tated the greatest known demographic catastrophe, with reduction perhaps as high as 90 percent by 1600. Scholars have focused mostly on establish- ing the precise reduction ratio, tracking the spread of introduced diseases, and analyzing particular epidemics (see Brooks 1993; Cook 1998; Cook and Lovell 2001; Henige 1998; Malvido 2003). Little attention has been paid to native perceptions (see Burkhart 1989: 141; McCaa 1995), and this article presents the frst systematic analysis of the abundant native testimony in the Relaciones Geográfcas of 1577–86. The Relaciones Geográfcas (RGs) report the impressive New World survey ordered by Spain’s King Felipe II. Hundreds of communities were surveyed with a printed, ffty-item interview schedule that was sent to “the Ethnohistory Published by Duke University Press