D.A. BRADING
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264461
- eISBN:
- 9780191734625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264461.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter demonstrates that while Spain had a clear vision of what the conquered Aztec city should be, the city of the conquistadors was relatively short for it was soon transformed by its Creole ...
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This chapter demonstrates that while Spain had a clear vision of what the conquered Aztec city should be, the city of the conquistadors was relatively short for it was soon transformed by its Creole inhabitants who made their own identity pronounced on its building and culture. For 300 years, the city of Mexico was the capital of viceroyalty. It was the capital of New Spain and was the seat of the metropolitan archbishopric of Mexico. During the first decades of the seventeenth century, a generation of young Creoles entered the secular priesthood and the religious orders. They challenged the predominance of European Spaniards, affirmed their talents and identity, and started looking back to the glorious past the conquistadors had destroyed. However, the development of the city was constrained and limited by the city’s status as the viceregal capital of New Spain. Its status hence meant that the city depended on the political decisions and cultural influences emanating from the Spanish. Out of this tension, a creative process of change emerged in which different ethnic groups and cultures intermingled and conflicted to ensure that the social composition and character of Mexico City would be different from the other cities in Spanish America. However, these changes were not brought without due loss. Due to the conquest and the Old World diseases the Mexico population fell to the near brink of oblivion. These epidemics and natural calamities continued to afflict the city throughout the colonial period.Less
This chapter demonstrates that while Spain had a clear vision of what the conquered Aztec city should be, the city of the conquistadors was relatively short for it was soon transformed by its Creole inhabitants who made their own identity pronounced on its building and culture. For 300 years, the city of Mexico was the capital of viceroyalty. It was the capital of New Spain and was the seat of the metropolitan archbishopric of Mexico. During the first decades of the seventeenth century, a generation of young Creoles entered the secular priesthood and the religious orders. They challenged the predominance of European Spaniards, affirmed their talents and identity, and started looking back to the glorious past the conquistadors had destroyed. However, the development of the city was constrained and limited by the city’s status as the viceregal capital of New Spain. Its status hence meant that the city depended on the political decisions and cultural influences emanating from the Spanish. Out of this tension, a creative process of change emerged in which different ethnic groups and cultures intermingled and conflicted to ensure that the social composition and character of Mexico City would be different from the other cities in Spanish America. However, these changes were not brought without due loss. Due to the conquest and the Old World diseases the Mexico population fell to the near brink of oblivion. These epidemics and natural calamities continued to afflict the city throughout the colonial period.
Paul Heggarty and David Beresford-Jones (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197265031
- eISBN:
- 9780191754142
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265031.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, American History: pre-Columbian BCE to 500CE
The Andes are of unquestioned significance to the human story: a cradle of agriculture and of ‘pristine’ civilisation with a pedigree of millennia. The Incas were but the culmination of a succession ...
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The Andes are of unquestioned significance to the human story: a cradle of agriculture and of ‘pristine’ civilisation with a pedigree of millennia. The Incas were but the culmination of a succession of civilisations that rose and fell to leave one of the richest archaeological records on Earth. By no coincidence, the Andes are home also to our greatest surviving link to the speech of the New World before European conquest: the Quechua language family. For linguists, the native tongues of the Andes make for another rich seam of data on origins, expansions, and reversals throughout prehistory. Historians and anthropologists, meanwhile, negotiate many pitfalls to interpret the conflicting mytho-histories of the Andes, recorded for us only through the distorting prism of the conquistadors' world-view. Each of these disciplines opens up its own partial window on the past: very different perspectives, to be sure, but all the more complementary for it. Frustratingly though, specialists in each field have all too long proceeded largely in ignorance of great strides being taken in the others. This book brings together a cast of scholars from each discipline, converging their disparate perspectives into a true cross-disciplinary focus, to weave together a coherent account of what was, after all, one and the same prehistory. The result, instructive also far beyond the Andes, is a case-study in the pursuit of a more holistic vision of the human past.Less
The Andes are of unquestioned significance to the human story: a cradle of agriculture and of ‘pristine’ civilisation with a pedigree of millennia. The Incas were but the culmination of a succession of civilisations that rose and fell to leave one of the richest archaeological records on Earth. By no coincidence, the Andes are home also to our greatest surviving link to the speech of the New World before European conquest: the Quechua language family. For linguists, the native tongues of the Andes make for another rich seam of data on origins, expansions, and reversals throughout prehistory. Historians and anthropologists, meanwhile, negotiate many pitfalls to interpret the conflicting mytho-histories of the Andes, recorded for us only through the distorting prism of the conquistadors' world-view. Each of these disciplines opens up its own partial window on the past: very different perspectives, to be sure, but all the more complementary for it. Frustratingly though, specialists in each field have all too long proceeded largely in ignorance of great strides being taken in the others. This book brings together a cast of scholars from each discipline, converging their disparate perspectives into a true cross-disciplinary focus, to weave together a coherent account of what was, after all, one and the same prehistory. The result, instructive also far beyond the Andes, is a case-study in the pursuit of a more holistic vision of the human past.
Diana de Armas Wilson
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198160052
- eISBN:
- 9780191673764
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198160052.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter addresses a literary genre not necessarily precipitated by, but deeply implicated in, Spain's enterprises of conquest and colonization. Many critics have described the conquest of ...
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This chapter addresses a literary genre not necessarily precipitated by, but deeply implicated in, Spain's enterprises of conquest and colonization. Many critics have described the conquest of America as ‘a chivalric enterprise’, or have romanticized it as ‘ocean chivalry’. Some critics have linked these New World chivalric exploits to Don Quixote by describing the conquistadores, through a rhetorically preposterous construction, as ‘quixotic’. Together with the books, the discourses of this popular genre crossed over to the New World with the conquistadores and, during the reign of Philip II, penetrated the great bureaucratic and military apparatus required for the maintenance of empire. The discussion speculates on the transatlantic impact of these massively popular books.Less
This chapter addresses a literary genre not necessarily precipitated by, but deeply implicated in, Spain's enterprises of conquest and colonization. Many critics have described the conquest of America as ‘a chivalric enterprise’, or have romanticized it as ‘ocean chivalry’. Some critics have linked these New World chivalric exploits to Don Quixote by describing the conquistadores, through a rhetorically preposterous construction, as ‘quixotic’. Together with the books, the discourses of this popular genre crossed over to the New World with the conquistadores and, during the reign of Philip II, penetrated the great bureaucratic and military apparatus required for the maintenance of empire. The discussion speculates on the transatlantic impact of these massively popular books.
Charles Montgomery
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520229716
- eISBN:
- 9780520927377
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520229716.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This compelling narrative traces the history of the upper Rio Grande's modern Spanish heritage, showing how Anglos and Hispanos sought to redefine the region's social character by glorifying its ...
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This compelling narrative traces the history of the upper Rio Grande's modern Spanish heritage, showing how Anglos and Hispanos sought to redefine the region's social character by glorifying its Spanish colonial past. This book demonstrates that northern New Mexico's twentieth-century Spanish heritage owes as much to the coming of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1880 as to the first Spanish colonial campaign of 1598. As the railroad brought capital and migrants into the region, Anglos posed an unprecedented challenge to Hispano wealth and political power. Yet unlike their counterparts in California and Texas, the Anglo newcomers could not wholly displace their Spanish-speaking rivals. Nor could they segregate themselves or the upper Rio Grande from the image, well-known throughout the Southwest, of the disreputable Mexican. Instead, prominent Anglos and Hispanos found common cause in transcending the region's Mexican character. Turning to colonial symbols of the conquistador, the Franciscan missionary, and the humble Spanish settler, they recast northern New Mexico and its people.Less
This compelling narrative traces the history of the upper Rio Grande's modern Spanish heritage, showing how Anglos and Hispanos sought to redefine the region's social character by glorifying its Spanish colonial past. This book demonstrates that northern New Mexico's twentieth-century Spanish heritage owes as much to the coming of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1880 as to the first Spanish colonial campaign of 1598. As the railroad brought capital and migrants into the region, Anglos posed an unprecedented challenge to Hispano wealth and political power. Yet unlike their counterparts in California and Texas, the Anglo newcomers could not wholly displace their Spanish-speaking rivals. Nor could they segregate themselves or the upper Rio Grande from the image, well-known throughout the Southwest, of the disreputable Mexican. Instead, prominent Anglos and Hispanos found common cause in transcending the region's Mexican character. Turning to colonial symbols of the conquistador, the Franciscan missionary, and the humble Spanish settler, they recast northern New Mexico and its people.
Amy G. Remensnyder
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199892983
- eISBN:
- 9780199388868
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199892983.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, World Medieval History, World Early Modern History
Mary had many devotees among early sixteenth-century conquistadors. In the Caribbean and in Mesoamerica, they would call on Mary for help in battles with New World peoples, thus continuing medieval ...
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Mary had many devotees among early sixteenth-century conquistadors. In the Caribbean and in Mesoamerica, they would call on Mary for help in battles with New World peoples, thus continuing medieval traditions. Yet in taking on new roles as lay evangelists, they would also offer Mary to the indigenous as a powerful woman who protected all who accepted her. According to the conquistadors, they presented Christianity to the indigenous as a Mary-centered faith embodied by images of her and often tried to replace indigenous images with these Marian likenesses. These men thus made themselves into Mary’s frontline soldiers in a “war of images” against idols. In Mesoamerica, conquistadors like Cortés would also draft Mary and her images into a calculated politics of friendship, describing their introduction of the Madonna into Maya and Nahua temples as the foundation for bonds of fraternity between victors and vanquished.Less
Mary had many devotees among early sixteenth-century conquistadors. In the Caribbean and in Mesoamerica, they would call on Mary for help in battles with New World peoples, thus continuing medieval traditions. Yet in taking on new roles as lay evangelists, they would also offer Mary to the indigenous as a powerful woman who protected all who accepted her. According to the conquistadors, they presented Christianity to the indigenous as a Mary-centered faith embodied by images of her and often tried to replace indigenous images with these Marian likenesses. These men thus made themselves into Mary’s frontline soldiers in a “war of images” against idols. In Mesoamerica, conquistadors like Cortés would also draft Mary and her images into a calculated politics of friendship, describing their introduction of the Madonna into Maya and Nahua temples as the foundation for bonds of fraternity between victors and vanquished.
Amy G. Remensnyder
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199892983
- eISBN:
- 9780199388868
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199892983.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, World Medieval History, World Early Modern History
In colonial New Spain, the indigenous did not forget that Mary had often first entered their world in the company of the conquistadors. By the second half of the sixteenth century, this memory would ...
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In colonial New Spain, the indigenous did not forget that Mary had often first entered their world in the company of the conquistadors. By the second half of the sixteenth century, this memory would begin to color how some Nahuas described the conversion of their people to Christianity and the dawning of what they saw as a new world cycle caused by the conquest. As they made Mary their own by applying to her pre-Colombian modes of religious understanding, some of these men and women would call her La Conquistadora. Nahuas such as the Tlaxcalteca who had been important military allies of the Spanish during the conquest would integrate the military Mary into the self-image they evolved as native Christian conquistadors and use her to assert their place in the colonial world vis-ò-vis both the Spanish and indigenous rivals. She became part of the useable pasts they elaborated for themselves.Less
In colonial New Spain, the indigenous did not forget that Mary had often first entered their world in the company of the conquistadors. By the second half of the sixteenth century, this memory would begin to color how some Nahuas described the conversion of their people to Christianity and the dawning of what they saw as a new world cycle caused by the conquest. As they made Mary their own by applying to her pre-Colombian modes of religious understanding, some of these men and women would call her La Conquistadora. Nahuas such as the Tlaxcalteca who had been important military allies of the Spanish during the conquest would integrate the military Mary into the self-image they evolved as native Christian conquistadors and use her to assert their place in the colonial world vis-ò-vis both the Spanish and indigenous rivals. She became part of the useable pasts they elaborated for themselves.
Kris Lane
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300161311
- eISBN:
- 9780300164701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300161311.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter describes the imminent emerald rush in October 1564, as the blood of conquest dried. The councilmen reported that “in this time there have been discovered many mines of emeralds of both ...
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This chapter describes the imminent emerald rush in October 1564, as the blood of conquest dried. The councilmen reported that “in this time there have been discovered many mines of emeralds of both the common and fine sort, and others so perfect as to be quite oriental.” Muzo attacks plagued European emerald seekers periodically for another three decades, but within about a year of the councilmen's letter to the king, the richest claims on the Cerro de Itoco were mapped, staked, and registered. This chapter shows how emerald mining in Muzo quickly became a formalized and well-recorded activity, although excavation techniques remained simple. Mining society was headed by a titled class of mine owners, including some women, mostly descended from conquistadors.Less
This chapter describes the imminent emerald rush in October 1564, as the blood of conquest dried. The councilmen reported that “in this time there have been discovered many mines of emeralds of both the common and fine sort, and others so perfect as to be quite oriental.” Muzo attacks plagued European emerald seekers periodically for another three decades, but within about a year of the councilmen's letter to the king, the richest claims on the Cerro de Itoco were mapped, staked, and registered. This chapter shows how emerald mining in Muzo quickly became a formalized and well-recorded activity, although excavation techniques remained simple. Mining society was headed by a titled class of mine owners, including some women, mostly descended from conquistadors.
Laura E. Matthew
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835371
- eISBN:
- 9781469601793
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807882580_matthew
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
Indigenous allies helped the Spanish gain a foothold in the Americas. What did these Indian conquistadors expect from the partnership, and what were the implications of their involvement in Spain's ...
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Indigenous allies helped the Spanish gain a foothold in the Americas. What did these Indian conquistadors expect from the partnership, and what were the implications of their involvement in Spain's New World empire? This study of Ciudad Vieja, Guatemala places the Nahua, Zapotec, and Mixtec conquistadors of Guatemala and their descendants within a deeply Mesoamerican historical context. Drawing on archives, ethnography, and colonial Mesoamerican maps, it argues that the conquest cannot be fully understood without considering how these Indian conquistadors first invaded and then, of their own accord and largely by their own rules, settled in Central America. Shaped by pre-Columbian patterns of empire, alliance, warfare, and migration, the members of this diverse indigenous community became unified as the Mexicanos—descendants of Indian conquistadors in their adopted homeland. Their identity and higher status in Guatemalan society derived from their continued pride in their heritage, says the author, but also depended on Spanish colonialism's willingness to honor them. Throughout the book, the author charts the power of colonialism to reshape and restrict Mesoamerican society—even for those most favored by colonial policy and despite powerful continuities in Mesoamerican culture.Less
Indigenous allies helped the Spanish gain a foothold in the Americas. What did these Indian conquistadors expect from the partnership, and what were the implications of their involvement in Spain's New World empire? This study of Ciudad Vieja, Guatemala places the Nahua, Zapotec, and Mixtec conquistadors of Guatemala and their descendants within a deeply Mesoamerican historical context. Drawing on archives, ethnography, and colonial Mesoamerican maps, it argues that the conquest cannot be fully understood without considering how these Indian conquistadors first invaded and then, of their own accord and largely by their own rules, settled in Central America. Shaped by pre-Columbian patterns of empire, alliance, warfare, and migration, the members of this diverse indigenous community became unified as the Mexicanos—descendants of Indian conquistadors in their adopted homeland. Their identity and higher status in Guatemalan society derived from their continued pride in their heritage, says the author, but also depended on Spanish colonialism's willingness to honor them. Throughout the book, the author charts the power of colonialism to reshape and restrict Mesoamerican society—even for those most favored by colonial policy and despite powerful continuities in Mesoamerican culture.
Judith Misrahi-Barak
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781781381519
- eISBN:
- 9781781384923
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781381519.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter explores the varying uses of amaranth — a broad-leafed plant that can be consumed as a vegetable for its leaves but also produces cereal-like grain — from the pre-European Amerindian ...
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This chapter explores the varying uses of amaranth — a broad-leafed plant that can be consumed as a vegetable for its leaves but also produces cereal-like grain — from the pre-European Amerindian Caribbean to the present day. In particular, it uses the amaranth paradigm to review the concepts of globalization and glocalization in the Caribbean context. It shows how amaranth, once closely connected to Amerindian civilization and culture, almost disappeared after being banned by the Spanish Conquistadors but has since demonstrated the diversity of its genus and its resilience. It also cites the fact that amaranth has been known for generations across the Caribbean basin under the name of ‘callaloo’. Finally, it discusses the (agri)cultural, historical, and linguistic complexities of amaranth and callaloo.Less
This chapter explores the varying uses of amaranth — a broad-leafed plant that can be consumed as a vegetable for its leaves but also produces cereal-like grain — from the pre-European Amerindian Caribbean to the present day. In particular, it uses the amaranth paradigm to review the concepts of globalization and glocalization in the Caribbean context. It shows how amaranth, once closely connected to Amerindian civilization and culture, almost disappeared after being banned by the Spanish Conquistadors but has since demonstrated the diversity of its genus and its resilience. It also cites the fact that amaranth has been known for generations across the Caribbean basin under the name of ‘callaloo’. Finally, it discusses the (agri)cultural, historical, and linguistic complexities of amaranth and callaloo.
Laura E. Matthew
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835371
- eISBN:
- 9781469601793
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807882580_matthew.5
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
Indigenous allies from central Mexico and Oaxaca helped the Spanish when they invaded Central America in 1524–28. This book discusses the lives of these warriors as colonists and colonial subjects ...
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Indigenous allies from central Mexico and Oaxaca helped the Spanish when they invaded Central America in 1524–28. This book discusses the lives of these warriors as colonists and colonial subjects who gradually became Mexicanos: a local group of Mesoamericans subjugated as Indians by the colonial system, but who enjoyed privileges on their identity as conquistadors. It provides a better understanding of the Mexicano's surviving memories of conquests by a reimagining of the conquest itself with the help of narratives, historical texts, and similar Mesoamerican sources.Less
Indigenous allies from central Mexico and Oaxaca helped the Spanish when they invaded Central America in 1524–28. This book discusses the lives of these warriors as colonists and colonial subjects who gradually became Mexicanos: a local group of Mesoamericans subjugated as Indians by the colonial system, but who enjoyed privileges on their identity as conquistadors. It provides a better understanding of the Mexicano's surviving memories of conquests by a reimagining of the conquest itself with the help of narratives, historical texts, and similar Mesoamerican sources.
