Abstract

CASTRO GUTIERREZ, Felipe. The Great Robbery of the Royal Mint of Mexico: The Delinquency and the Limits of Justice in Mexico City. Estud. hist. novohisp [online]. 2012, n.46, pp.83-113. ISSN 2448-6922.

This article deals with a large silver robbery committed in 1739 at the Royal Mint of Mexico. Besides its own interest, the case open attractive perspectives on the success, the limits and the ambiguities of the administration of justice, and the way the criminals could quite easily run away or take asylum in ecclesiastical buildings. The paper also considers the antecedents, living, ethnicity and attitudes of the criminal group, and concludes that a combination of personal resentment, the absence of respect towards the social order, and the pressures of daily life could conduce the rabble to occasional or, as in this case, major crimes.

Keywords : New Spain; Mexico City; Royal Mint; criminality; justice.