From Tribute to Communal Sovereignty examines both continuity and change over the last five centuries for the indigenous peoples of central western Mexico, providing the first sweeping and comprehensive history of this important region in Mesoamerica.

The continuities elucidated concern ancestral territorial claims that date back centuries and reflect the stable geographic locations occupied by core populations of indigenous language-speakers in or near their pre-Columbian territories since the Postclassical period, from the thirteenth to late fifteenth centuries. A common theme...