A similar problem runs through the articles by Freise and Gonzales, who both discuss New Mexico’s “Cuartocentenario Controversy.” How to memorialize Onate and the Indians he brutalized? Was such an approach feasible or possible? As Freise phrases it, “Can the story that those who shaped the memorial were asked to tell…be told without the lead character, whether hero or villain?” Her question is prescient, and probably unanswerable, since even if the main character is deleted form the scene, a generic “Spaniard” or “Spaniards” will remain, and remain controversial. Of particular worth in her article, moreover, is her analysis of the distinction between  memorial and a monument. She memorably terms this “codes of remembrance” (243). Monuments, so she argues (and I agree) mark victories; memorials are more elegiac, and perhaps more subjective in their effect. Memorials, ideally, “point to the tension of the past that seeps into the present and taps into the instability of memory itself” (246). Gonzales’ essay articulates the inherent tension in the Cuartocentenario situation more forcefully. “For centuries,” he writes, “American Indians suffered both hostility in being considered vestiges of the uncivilized ‘savage’ and condescension in being connected to the quaintly primitive” (211). Given this traditional hostility, how does one explain ethnic and cultural diversity? On the one hand, diversity is, publicly at least, one of the most celebrated attributes—nothing is more politically correct right now than diversity. And yet, that diversity came about through violence and rape both literal and figurative. “To glorify Onate,” he writes, “it was necessary to leave major episodes of his story aside” (214). The message is clear: history with purposeful omissions cannot be true history. Pro-Onate advocates speak of the benefits brought by the Spanish to the region. The same, of course, has been said about the positive attributes of the European colonization of Africa.

Alfredo Jimenez’s article about the same celebrations perhaps best expresses the difficulty of approaching a topic (or milestone) from sharply contrasting worldviews. As Jimenez claims, the rise of the Spanish American empire was a tremendous thing, and Onate was undeniably in a world of rapid transformation—a situation he was able to manipulate for his own personal goals and gain. At the same time, however, the Native Americans in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres were not biding their time in an idyllic paradise. “[W]arfare, conquest, and subjugation were the rule throughout the western hemisphere…” (111). Yet he is not, as I se it, an apologist. “History and centennials,” he writes, “do not have to wait until the present for the trial of Don Juan de Onate” (121). The so-called “last conquistador” was himself tried in Mexico City and obliged for forfeit his titles and a substantial part of his riches.

For the indigenous peoples, the sixteenth (and seventeenth, and eighteenth) centuries were marked by fear and uncertainty. For the Europeans, those years represented the pinnacle of progress. Perhaps the best way to examine the tumultuous time is to recognize that all historical actors are products of their environment. Furthermore, it is not the historian’s job to condemn (or condone) the actions of people in the past, but to explain them on their own terms (without excusing their often heinous actions). Is it possible to remember without potentially controversial memorials? Probably not, but centennial celebrations do seem to cause more anxiety than understanding, and more agitation than education.

Rigoberta Menchu certainly seems to think so. Regarding the 1992 Quincentenary, for example, she claims, convincingly, that “A just evaluation of history seems to have been set aside.” Persuasively, she argues that milestones such as these need not be automatic celebrations, but rather evaluations of historical events. Of course, whether one can summon up the energy to do so without a hero is another question. Novelist Maria Vagas Llosa expounds upon this educational, rather than celebratory, approach. (I think she uses her history professor, Raul Porras Barrenechea, to good effect here.) How to understand the fall of the Inca, one of the few civilizations in world history to eliminate hunger from its population? Llosa argues that it cannot be done without a comprehensive understanding of who the Tawantinsuyu were and what comprised their worldviews. When the Inca himself was killed, given the “vertical and totalitarian structure” of their society, the Tawantinsuyu believed they had no choice but to die (albeit heroically, as Llosa notes). Despite their genius at organization, she claims, the stregth of the society was misleading. They were not capable of “facing the unexpected.” But, again, how should historians judge the fall of the indienous Peruvian empire, given that it was a totalitarian state, and its fall opened the way for the individual? Given the enduring poverty and hunger in modern-day Peru, Llosa leaves little question as to where she stands on the issue.

Canizares-Esguerra’s premise is original and certainly worthy of further discussion. It also contain problems, one of which is that there were no “British” Puritans, as the Kingdom of Great Britain was not established until 1707. This may seem a quibble, but it is indicative of the pitfalls in comparative history—a seemingly small error may indicate a larger misunderstanding of very different contexts. He is quite right to assert that “theological differences manifested themselves concretely in the ways these two religious communities approached colonization” (15). These processes of conversion, after all, were binary opposites. The Conquistadors demanded conversion from every new willing or unwilling subject; the Puritans often denied salvation to their own kin, if sufficient evidence of God’s favor was not visible in the actions and words of the repentant. These are not small differences. Drawing on written and visual sources, Canizares-Esguerra claims that the “martial, epic tone” appears in the writings of both Spaniards and Puritans, and he has the sources to support the claim. What he does not adequately support, in my view, is his argument that the English Protestants and the Spanish Catholics, for their similar energies, shared the same interpretation of who Satan was and how he manifested his evil powers in the world. While conceding that his selected courses “emerged in unique social and political contexts and was devised o persuade particular audiences and to address social agendas,” he pointedly refuses to take these contexts into account. What is the historian’s job if not to incorporate social, cultural, and political contexts in the analysis of a source, in order to better explain the past? His reason? “I seek to reconstruct a worldview that is essentially violent, alien, and offensive to our modern sense of what is physically possible” (17). In other words, he offers no real reason. Perhaps he thinks the reader will be confused by the additional information. Or perhaps the various contexts of the writings would weaken his argument.

I do not intend to be overly critical. Indeed, his comparative analysis of the English and Spanish “satanic epics” such as Edmund Spenser, John Milton, and Pedro de Quiroga would make a fine article on its own. “The satanic epic in England,” he writes, “thus came back full circle, back to Iberian models, because, paradoxically, the Puritans fully embraces every trope of the Iberian genre” (82). However, although he convincingly argues that many ideas of heaven, hell, angels, and demons were incorporated into both Protestant and Catholics works of literature, this does not equate to similar motivations for the colonization and conquest of the New World. The English migrations to Virginia and Cape Cod (and it should be remembered that the Mayflower landed a thousand miles off course; it was aiming for Jamestown) were not intended to conquer anybody. Cortes knew there were indigenous civilizations in the interior of Mexico, and sought to make them the King’s vassals. The initial flight of the Puritans, on the other hand, was extralegal; they were delighted on learning much of eastern Massachusetts had been cleared for them by pestilence (which they believed ordained by God).

In short, Canizares-Esguerra’s work misses the point. The reason the Puritans ad Conquistadors have traditionally been studies separately is because they represented very different approaches to the European exploration and settlement of the Americas. Although comparative history has its merits, Puritans Conquistadors, to my mind, represents the dangers of pressing a comparison too far.

We’ve seen this before, of course, with Cortes and the creation of the cabildo. The Veracruz cabildo was established to justify the presence and actions of Cortes and his men; it had nothing to do with the Mexica or Tlascalans. These ceremonies were sometimes preordained by the European governments, as in the case of Columbus, who had been given precise instructions. Others simply operated on the fly, as it were, and drew on their own experience and instincts to create ceremonies of possession where none existed. Seed’s point is clear: there was no “European” in North or South America, only an Englishman, Spaniard, et cetera. While the five European powers operated with similar tools (such as ships and cannons) “they did not share a common understanding of even the political objectives of military action” (3). While one is tempted to quip that similar problems can be witnessed in our own time, Patricia Seed’s comment serves to illustrate the truly unprecedented nature of the Conquest.

The intersection of ceremony, language, and law enabled the infant colonial “institutions” to create both authority and legitimacy—two different but mutually dependent things with different manifestations form each colonial power. The English, according to Seed, found legitimization in the altering of the landscape; physical inhabitation and “improvement” of the land gave legitimacy to its acquisition (32). The Portuguese, on the other hand, had adopted many of the celestial navigation knowledge form the Arab World, and pioneered much knowledge of their own, alone among the powers of Europe. In short, the Portuguese believed they had intellectually earned the right to conquest (133).

Throughout, Seed writes in an easygoing, lucid style. It is not difficult to see why this book is now in its 13^th printing. Even the geographical and astronomical explanations are written plainly, free of jargon. There is one problem with the book, however, although I am unable to determine its significance. Throughout, Seed claims that the ceremonies of possession were mutually unintelligible among the European colonial powers, de to difference in language and culture, among other things. This was no doubt true to a degree. After all, the Dutch viewed the world very differently than the Spanish. However, I wonder if she may not be oversimplifying in order to sustain her argument. Most educated Europeans of the time were at least moderately multilingual, and mariners, at least, have a language and vocabulary of their own—the reason the Genoese Columbus could make himself intelligible in any sailor’s bar in the Mediterranean. Just because Europeans approached possession and justification differently form other Europeans, and considered their methods along to be authentic, does not necessarily mean that the actions of others were completely baffling to them.

Or does it? I don’t pretend to know. I do know that this book, on this reading at least, struck me as valuable and intriguing, and certainly worth re-examining in the future.

The Chapter on the Spanish Conquest, too, is valuable: the author rightfully places the Conquest in the larger context of the Reconquista, and his narrative of the various expeditions of Cortes, Coronado, and Onate are detailed, highly readable, and competently addressed. Again, Gutierrez succinctly—brevity being the soul of wit—and memorably incorporates the Spanish way of looking at the world into his narrative. “In death as in life,: he writes, “one’s honor in the community determined where one’s bones would rest in relation to sacred objects” (61). Similarly, his description of the Catholic Mass is informative and (not surprisingly) accurate, and Gutierrez does a fine job, in my view, in describing the institutionalization of the Church into the contours of daily life. His chapter on the political aspects of the Church—the Franciscans as instruments of political conquest as well as religious conversion—was fascinating.

Indeed, when it comes to describing the Spaniards, Gutierrez excels. His chapter on the Re-Conquest of New Mexico, however—that is, when discussing the Pueblos—descends into a maelstrom of unreadable statistics. Although the sentence “A geometric growth rate subjected to regression analysis and plotted on a logarithmic scale was then undertaken,” is doubtless comprehensible to someone, it is not I (172). This would be perfectly acceptable to me, as I make no claim to understand cliometric theory, but one wonders if the author is not simply inserting jargon to show off his vocabulary. Indeed, even at moments where I think I know where the author is going, such as his discussion of honor on page 177, Gutierrez takes the analysis in an unexpected direction. He is quite correct in his attempt to explain the concept of honor; in fact, I would argue it is essential, since it is one of those ambiguous concepts universally applied but only rarely mutually understood. “Honor,” he claims, “was first a value judgment concerning one’s social personality, a reflection.” Fair enough. Then: “Honor ultimately depended on brute force.” It is not far-fetched to accept that “honor” is something not intrinsic, but derives from one’s peers. (The literature on honor in American history is extensive.) But the assertion that honor depended on “brute force” is a dramatic one, and Gutierrez provides not a Pueblo or even Spanish source for justification, but Thomas Hobbes, taken completely out of context.

Perhaps ironically, given his subtitle, his chapters on marriage seem, to this reader at least, to be the weakest in the book. In his detailed descriptions of “dire impediments” to the institution of marriage, such as incest, adultery, and murder, one would not be off-base to conclude that there was no such thing as a Pueblo happy marriage. Furthermore, his “empirical evidence” concerning Pueblo and Spanish relations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries concerns not written records—the building-blocks with which historians (though not anthropologists, of course) work, but 19 tables and charts, each one less intelligible than the last. Again, statistics have their place, and each scholar must use the evidence available to him or her. However, such a surfeit of statistics strikes me as evidence of laziness. There has got to be a better way of communicating the same information in a written, readable form.

Gutierrez’s work is, to repeat, not without its merits. Much of his stated purpose remains worthy of emulation, or at least consideration. The same, however, cannot be said about the book’s execution.

Pete Sigal’s work focuses on the evolution of the Mayan religious worldview (a word, admittedly, I throw about with to much frequency; I simply cannot think of a better term). As Sigal phrases the “religious conquest” of the Maya, “[T]he ways in which Maya people made sense of their world were colonized and forever altered” (xiv). Crucial to understanding this shift is this simple dichotomy between the Maya and Catholic understandings of sexuality. For the Maya, “sexual desire was placed in a cultural framework centered around ritual,” whereas for the Spanish Catholics “sexual desire was placed in a framework related to sin” (xiv). Sigal seeks to under stand the relationship between desire and power in the Mayan indigenous religion(s) and in the resulting hybrid faiths that emerged form the syncretism. Sigal argues, convincingly, that sexual desires did not, and do not, exist without social constructs, and lays solid framework for discussing Maya sexual acts and ideas (7). Moreover, the “sacred sphere” was integral to the life of the Maya. Indeed, “Upon a child’s birth, sacred diviners told kin what the child’s life had in store for him or her” (19). This form of predestination enhances the ritual aspects of communal worship and, not incidentally, helps to place human sacrifice (among other things) in a more manageable context.

Sigal’s notable achievement, however, and the primary purpose of this book, is his analysis of how two central feminine figures in Maya and Catholic religious ideology combine to become something both recognizable and alien to both cultures. The Moon Goddess is an inherently sexual creature, a desire that crosses gender lines and affects both men and women. She is simultaneously a maternal being, and there is no contradiction in that: the mother Moon Goddess derives her power, her sacredness, from the renewal of the sexual act. Needless to say, this idea is anathema to the Spaniards, for whom the Virgin is not only the mother of God, but a figure whose reverence derives in no small part from the fact that she is “ever-virgin”—eternally chaste, forever demure and inviolate (101). The result is curious (and, I admit, one that I do not fully understand: the Virgin Mary becomes a figure that is a guide and intercessor; but the Moon Goddess did not simply disappear. “Like the desire for the saints,” Sigal writes with admirable understatement, “the concept of the Virgin Mary Moon Goddess perhaps pushed Catholicism to its limits” (115).

If Sigal’s task is difficult, Trexler’s is perhaps more so. Sex and Conquest is an effort worthy of emulation, one that seeks to classify and describe attitudes, practices, and identities (including self-identities) as they relate to topics that may be difficult to articulate, let alone understand, and to do so with a dearth of both Spanish and indigenous sources.

“Sexuality defines gender,” writes Trexler, “a discourse that is about power relations” (2). To that end, Trexler focuses on sexuality, particularly male homosexuality, as integral to both social and political power prior to and during the Conquest era. Key to his study is an examination of attitudes toward male homosexual behavior as vehicles for classifying the conquered as the proverbial “Other.” Trexler takes the long view of history, arguing, convincingly, that ancient examples of homosexual activity served the purpose of cementing power relationships, just as heterosexual unions throughout history have been used for the purposes of dealing with issues of property.

Central to Trexler’s analysis in the figure of the berdache, a position that has no exact equivalent, to my knowledge, in modern Western history (certainly not in colonial American or United states history, although apparently in native North American cultures)—that is, a socially acceptable lifelong transvestite, “biological males that appeared to be women and who performed women’s tasks” (67).

Trexler, to his credit, does not shy from making broader observations about sexuality and its relation to culture and society. In particular, his discussion of child-raising and gendered roles in children, and his comments on the controversial topic of homosexuality’s innateness or construction is worth remembering, considering the social issues of modern America (85). In short, as I have mentioned in this blog and elsewhere, neither work is accessible through a single reading, and both have much insight to offer, not only about the period of the Conquest, but about universal human behavior and the varieties of life.

The book, while focusing on Malintze, is equally about the indigenous experience of the Conquest, as Townsend claims, and especially about the female experience of the turbulent era. Although I knew full well that the Spaniards baptized the indigenous women before taking sexual advantage of them, in Townsend’s account these actions are more fully explained. To our modern sensibilities, this seems contradictory, not to mention criminally hypocritical. Townsend is particularly effective, however, in reminding  us that, whatever our sense of distaste, the baptisms were fully in keeping with the Spanish modus operandi, and must be understood in that context (36). The same applies for the now-well-understood establishment of the cabildo. The author is adept at explaining the situation clearly, and concisely: “He [Cortes] arranged to have the expedition’s men demand that they attemt to conquer Moctezuma…”(44).

Even more important for understand this meeting of two worlds, in my view, is Townsend’s presentation of the much larger, even macro, context. Her discussion of agriculture immediately comes to mind: understanding that ancient corn was less nutritive than ancient wheat and peas is essential to understanding  the evolution of societies, including their technological evolution. Similarly, the surviving pictorial representations of Malintze are telling, according to Townsend; there is a reason she is sometimes portrayed as larger than the surrounding figures: “She expertly supervises the collection of tribute on the Spaniards’ behalf” (75). (I confess, I sometimes fall into the trap of assuming premodern artists did not understand depth.)

The value of this book, of course, moves beyond Malintze, as mentioned above. She argues, pragmatically, that in order to understand Moctezuma’s thoughts and motives, for example, “we essentially have only his previous and future actions to go on” (89) The Mexica ruler was not caught off-guard, as many sources and modern histories attest. In fact, according to Townsend, he had been warily keeping an eye on the sea since 1517. Even if any analysis of Moctezuma is conjecture, the author claims, convincingly, that the effort helps to “undermine any easy acceptance of the utterances as fact” (89). Malintzin’s Choices is both a fine work of ethnohistory as well as a testament to the benefits and possibilities of ethnohistory to those of us who work with more familiar sources and with historical periods much closer to our own. Townsend’s book in some ways reminds me of Donald Kagan’s The Peloponnesian War. Kagan has only Thucydides’ work to rely on, along with a very few other sources, but from that he is able to, with some ambiguity, describe the history and worldviews of other Greek city-states and the Persian Empire. (This is not the most apt analogy, but I can currently not think of a better one.)

Finally, Townsend must be commended in spending time on Malintzin’s job. Every chronicle and modern history mentions that she served as a translator (among other things), but few give credit to the exhausting and unenviable position she found herself in (or, for all we know, wrangled herself into). The sheer act of translating, according to Townsend, is mentally very taxing, but that was not the end of her responsibility. She was the messenger who actually communicated the demands, and could do little to alleviate what must have been terribly awkward situations. “Despite her many skills,” Townsend writes, “there was absolutely nothing Malintzin could do to change the situation” (120). This comment, and this book, testify to the young woman’s grit and resourcefulness. The author, appropriately, offers no definitive answer as to whether Malintzin was a sexy opportunist or one who served as the proverbial “bitch,” as she puts it. There is no doubt she was in a hellish environment, and there is little doubt, it seems, that she used what tools she had at her disposal to carve a living in an uncertain world. That, it seems to me, is laudworthy.

I will begin by commenting on this last point. It is significant that Krippner-Martinez is working with few or no new materials here, as his title implies. With the exception of his last chapter and conclusion, which discuss more recent historiography, the text examines materials that have been known to scholars, and analyzed by them, for centuries. As concerns the Conquest and colonial eras in Michoacan, Mexico, of course, this makes sense, as there is a finite number of primary sources available. But I believe Krippner-Martinez is, at least implicitly, endeavoring to make a larger point: just because materials have been examined by multiple generations of scholars does not mean their value has been exhausted, or that all that remains is for younger historians to do minor mopping up work. Rather, it is incumbent upon students and scholars to re-evaluate their field of study and the materials therein as a whole, to ask questions that are more accurate and salient, which Professor Krippner-Martinez does very well.

To wit: The first chapter, “The Vision of the Victors,” examines the Proceso, the account of the trial of the Cazonci by the authority of Nuno de Guzman, traditionally one of the more disreputable of the conquistadors. By a careful reading, observing both what the record contains and what it omits, Krippner-Martinez arrives at two conclusions: that the Indians were not passive to the efforts of the Spaniards, lacking agency; and the conquistador (in this case Guzman) was not “abberrant and even pathological” but pragmatic and efficient, acting within the paradigms of his time and place (10). The author gives due credit to the tenuous nature of the document by explaining the multiple hands through which it passed (as many as four of rive in the case of the Native American testimonies), but argues, for the most part convincingly, that “This is not to say that the testimonies contained in this document are fraudulent or valueless” (15). Throughout this chapter, and the work as a whole, Krippner-Martinez emphasizes context. “We cannot understand the execution [of the Cazonci],” he writes, “unless we take into account the frustrations of the initial wave of Spanish settlers and their self-defined need to establish control over the region” (21). His careful, competent analysis of the material is appealing–one wishes that every author would write with such directness and clarity.

The author is also, it is fair to claim, writing with an agenda beyond a mere re-examination of the Conquest, and that, too, is refreshing. His descriptions of torture (including, on page 33, so-called “water torture”) are explicit, and are presented with an analysis of the significance of torture (personal dominance, not humiliation per se). Similarly, his descriptions of Beaumont’s later efforts to understand and justify what many (then and since) have considered the excesses of the Conquest raise larger questions about morality and the means to ends. A scholar who wishes to tackle serious historical events, Krippner-Martinez seems to be saying, must also tackle serious, and at times discomfiting, issues of morality–while striving to keep one’s own subjectivity under control. Indeed, at the book’s end, he explicitly denounced the ongoing efforts of the Catholic Church to present the “spiritual conquest” of the Americas as the result of divine will, stating, simply, “It is time for a change” (183). Even given the relative secularism of most of the academics I know, this strikes me as a gutsy statement.

The book is not without its flaws, however. For all his merits, Krippner-Martinez’s analysis  more than once descends into the realm of what one of my professors called “inside baseball.” That is, he knows the material so well that he is not always the most effective communicator. On page 34, for example, he briefly mentions the wel-known rivalry between Guzman and Cortes, asserting that “it is plausible to suggest that the Cazonci also may have been victimized by the factional politics of the conquerors themselves.” While he does later mention the rivalry, briefly, this statement is far too significant to lack further discussion, which the author does not provide. Another example is his examination of Beaumont’s Cronica in Chapter 4, in which he does not clearly introduce the Aparato to the non-specialist; it simply appears in the middle of the paragraph, leading this reader, for one, to go back and wonder if I had missed something  (I had not) (114-5).  At times we may question whether his efforts at reading against the grain are in fact not examples of his reading into the text assumptions about motives that can not be properly ascertained.

These are quibbles, however. While the above concerns are legitimate, they do not significantly detract from the value and accomplishment of the book. Rereading the Conquest is the work of a scholar at the top of his game. The work adds to the hisotiographical discussion by questioning old asumptions and articulating new questions–which themselves, the author understands, will be amended by future historians down the line. As he concludes, the point of his research (and, by extension, all historical investigation) “is not to deny the reality of the sixteenth century, but rather to note the historiographical distance that must be overcome to catch even a fleeting glimpse of the actual past” (191). For this student, that is certainly a mission statement worth keeping in mind.

In the twelfth chapter of Book XII of the Florentine Codex, for example, we witness, in an intimate way, the response of the Mexica to the Europeans’ attitude towards gold: “Like monkeys they grabbed the gold. It was though their hearts were put to rest, brightened, renewed” (29). On the one hand we must be careful to recognize sheer (and understandable) dislike and scorn when we read it. On the other, there is little doubt in my mind that, having marched and toiled through what was no doubt an uncomfortable and high-stress environment, the Spaniards were indeed overjoyed to find the precious metal, as anyone who works hard for something is thrilled to finally have it. Both the joy on the part of the conquistadors and the distaste on the part of the Mexica strike me as authentic human reactions, and serve to give the history of the Conquest a personal dimension heretofore seen only in snippets.

The selection of brief documents also provide a reminder that the events we are examining in retrospect were lived in prospect. It is something every undergraduate history major should know, but something I, at least, am reminded of continuously. When the Tenocha argue among themselves and ask the agonizing question “Will  they [our children] ever live to grow up?” I am reminded of one of Restall’s myths: that of completion. The so-called Conquest, with all its attending uncertainties, weighed on the  minds  of individuals for decades and, given the time frame of this volume, indeed centuries.

The chapter on religious life was, for me, especially revealing-perhaps a necessary reminder, in this secular age, of the varieties of religious experience, as William James put it. We encounter the unpleasant example of the four fornicating friars, and can only assume that their exploits permanently tarnished Christianity in the minds of potential converts. And we also see the late seventeenth century example of Angelina, who bequeaths her houses to various saints in an act of sincere piety that shows no traces of indigenous religion, at least to my non-specialist eye.

Restall and Asselberg’s Invading Guatemala is a fascinating account–aided by the succinct and well-written introduction–of a would-be Cortes, Pedro de Alvarado. From the text, we gather that he was impressed with, and no doubt envious of, Cortes’ success in the Valley of Mexico, and sought to duplicate or surpass the earlier achievement in Guatemala. Alvarado’s letters to Cortes reveal a man of terrific ambition (and perhaps a dangerous temper), but one who (for whatever this may be worth) makes a point of praising the Spaniards accompanying him, shows respect for their endurance, and continually sent his own brother and cousin out on the most dangerous assignments (for which, as it turns out, they received very little reward). Bernal Diaz, for his part, portrays Alvarado as one who “displayed good will toward the caciques” (65).

The Nahua acounts, however, are for me the most revelatory in this anthology. The Tlaxcalan letter to the King of 1547, for example, follows the standard epistolary format verbatim, complete with the honorific “Holy Catholic and Caesarean Royal Majesty” (83). Their plight is severe, and the desperation evident: “Therefore, having seen and heard the very good and beneficial services done for your Majesty, we humbly implore you…[to] remember us, the poor and miserable, exhausted from such prolonged labors….” (84). Not only to the Tlaxcalans have nowhere else to turn–bring up the question as to the extent they truly considered themselves Spanish subjects–but they considered themselves to be, andin fact were themselves, conquistadores. It is something I was aware of intellectually, but the beauty of primary sources is their ability to express the reality of it. In the vernacular: primary sources drive the point home.

The selections from Gibson’s The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule provide a welcome, and necessary complement to the chronicle of Bernal Diaz del Castilo, the narrative of William H. Prescott, and the epistolary writings of Cortes himself. The author begins, appropriately enough, with geography. The descriptions of the Valley of Mexico abound in the aforementioned sources, but the modern reader is rightfully skeptical as to their veracity. For that matter, aside from a comment or two in the introductions, the non-specialist reader may well be unsure as to what, precisely, comprises the Valley of Mexico. Gibson’s work, as he describes it, is about change, and the physical changes of the Valley of Mexico well serves as a metaphor to describe how European and Mesoamerican civilizations inaugurated the history of Latin America. In addition to the statistics of annual rainfall, agricultural fertility, and impressive population density (more than three hundred persons per square mile [p.5]), Gibson describes, albeit too briefly, the Spanish attempts and successes (using Indian labor) at civil engineering in Tenochtitlan/Mexico City, centuries-long effort at cutting a wall in the Valley, opening the basin to the sea.  The author expresses an appreciation for the different mediums through which archaeologists and historians go about their work to study pre- and post-conquest Mexico, which is fitting, since his work is about how two distinct cultures merged, if imperfectly.

Gibson’s impressive second chapter, on the various tribes of central Mexico, cannot be fully understood by a single reading. To this non-specialist, it is a remarkable piece of delineation and explanation that may deserve to stand along as a supplementary piece in a Latin American or world history survey course; certainly it dispells any notion of the indigenous inhabitants of preconquest Mexico as in any way monolithic. Similarly, Gibson’s discussion of the emcomiendas in Chapter Four ably describes the evolution of social and political perrogatives in New Spain, including the ambiguities and conflicts resulting from that evolution (although his assertion that the encomienda system was, in essence, benign vis a vis the Indians merits further commentary early on, though he later addresses in detail both the abuses of ecomienda society and the fine line between de jure and de facto slavery).

It is no doubt easier to describe periods of relative stasis (i. e., the fifty years preceeding the Conquest) than times of transtition (the half-century after the Conquest), but Gibson pulls it off. “This was the time,” he writes, “when Indian peoples, or some of them, met the Spanish influence part way and reached positive degrees of cultural accord” (404).  Furthermore, both societies were anything but unified as concerned possible responses to the other. Gibson’s analysis describes the confusion of those decades in an articulate and revealing way, and shed much additional light on the earlier narratives.

James Lockhart’s Of Things of the Indies is, similarly, a welcome complement to the narrative sources of the Conquest, but this collection of essays reads, naturally enough, quite diffrently. Certain chapters may be more accesssible to scholars of the period (Chapter 10, “Some Unfashionable Ideas on the History of the Nahuatl Language,” for example), but others are wonderfully informative in their own right. Chapter 5 places the various uses of American resources in their contexts, including “who the immigrants were and what were their goals and needs” (121). In fact, Lockhart’s volume reads as a more subtle version of Restall’s Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquesti. The immigrants, for example–a term Lockhart consideres at least as accurate as “conqueror”–are addressed based on Lockhart’s own earlier studies, and it is refreshing to read a scholar who questions whether religious fervor was a conscious, unbiquitous, motivating factor in the appropriation of native resources: “The religious beliefs of the majority…in no way inpeded or even affected their economic activity” (126). Similarly, the early desire for gold (before silver came to dominate) was not the result of a simple “medieval” affinity with the shiny metal, but a pragmatic need for cash money.

Throughout the volume, Lockhart makes it clear he views himself as a social historian, and his essay on the merchants of early Latin America describes the evolution, or rather importation, of the different stages of the merchant classes (as well as the companies for which they worked), thus suporting his argument that ecomonic history is a root of social history. (I am not sure I agree, but Lockhart supports his assertion more than adequately.)

To close, Lockhart prvides a thoroughlly enjoyable and thoroughly subjective memoir-essay describing his own path to the historical profession. I am not sure is fits in with the earlier essays in this anthology–in fact, I am sure it does not–but, to this hopeful novice, “A Historian and the Disciplines” provides both a breath of fresh air and, once again, serves to illustrate the fact that we all write from the perspective of the times in which we live and work.

Moreover, the History is far from being a panegyric about the exploits of Cortes and the Spaniards, as I initially feared it would be. I was impressed, and surprised, at the attention given to the ancient Mexica, and the respect accorded their magnificent civilization. No doubt much of this is my own sense of presentism–no scholar of the nineteenth century could shed favorable light on the non-European conquered peoples, I perhaps assumed. Yet Prescott seeks to “acquaint the reader with the character of this extraordinary race,” and initially does so admirably (p. ix). The descriptions of Tenochitlan as th Venice of the New World, the appreciation of the engineering skills of the Mexica, and his open admiration of their horticultural abilities in that harsh climate was, for me, refreshing.

As I read, however, I began to do so more critically. Prescott indeed expressed some admiration for the ancient Mexicans, but by no means does he examine them on theitr own merits, as I initially assumed.  Much of Chapter 3 , for example, discusses the religions and rites of the Mexica, and I could not help but notice an implicit anti-clerical strain: “The influence of the priesthood must be greatest in an imperfect state of civilization, where it engrosses all the scanty science in its own body” (p. 55).  Just as I began to wonder whether Prescott was not expressing much of the anti-Catholicism of the educated American classes of the nineteenth century, the author makes a more explicit reference: “The secrets of the [Aztec] confessional were held inviolable, and penances were imposed of much the same kind as those enjoined by the Roman Catholic Church” (56). Prescott, like all historians everywhere, write from the perspective of the times in which they live.  On the other hand, Prescott’s admiration of Cortes (quite obviously Catholic) and Queen Isabella (ditto) are unmistakable, so this might be reading too much into the material.

That Prescott admires Cortes, however–as opposed to merely being intrigued or fascinated by him–is unmistakable. The great Captain’s “enlightened genius” shines on nearly every page (xi). This lead, for me, to the most important realization concerning Prescott’s fine, but imperfect, work.  (Much of the primary sources he accepts uncritically, particularly Bernal Diaz del Castillo.) Prescott’s narrative is largely a celebration of Cortes and his men, and the trials they endured as they marched toward the Valley of Mexico.  That is to say, the author writes with an agenda. Every scholar does, granted, but as I read it occured to me that Prescott never considered the Conquest as anything other than a major step in the march of progress.  Although he admired the Mexica on certain, primarily technical, grounds, at no point in the text does he suggest that they deserved to maintain their way of life. Perhaps, of course, it is not the histrians responsibility to do that–to play “what if” games. If  it is the historian’s task, however, to explain how and why things happen, Prescott’s work, for all its attributes, deserves to be remembred as the product of a bygone era.

To wit, concerning the Aztec women: “They appear to have…passed thir time in indolent tranquility, or in such feminine occupations as spinning, embroidery and the like[.]“  Yet perhaps I am being unduly harsh on Prescott; he was a product of his own time, as am I.  Suffice it to say, both the histories of Mexico and Peru (which, frankly, I prefer for a variety of reasons) are inarguably page-turners. If nothing else, Prescott is a master of the narrative form.