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The Spanish conquest and colonization of the
Americas dramatically transformed the lives of native peoples in
Mesoamerica and the Andes. This revolutionary and multilayered process
varied greatly in its intensity and timing from region to region,
but in all cases radically changed indigenous societies, their values
and beliefs. The encounter between native peoples and the Spanish
conquistadors and later settlers was marked by violence and drastic,
epidemic-driven population decline. This dislocatory phase gradually
gave way to myriad forms of accommodation, resistance, and social,
cultural and religious hybridity – the colonial heritage of
Spanish America.
… The innovative essays in this
volume compare the colonial experience of native peoples of the
conquered Aztec, Maya and Inca civilizations, from the sixteenth
to the early nineteenth centuries. They highlight their creative
responses to the challenges posed by colonial rule, its institutions,
religion, and legal and economic systems. Interdisciplinary in approach,
the essays distil a generation of scholarship and suggest an agenda
for future research. This book will be of great interest to historians,
archaeologists, anthropologists, and postcolonialists.
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| Acknowledgments
Introduction: First Nations between Conquest
and Independence, David Cahill and Blanca Tovía
Part I Conquest and the Creation of Colonial Culture
1 Writing Two Cultures: The Meaning of “Amoxtli” (Book) in
Nahua New Spain, Susan Schroeder
2 The Cosmological Bases of Local Power in the Andes during
the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Susan E. Ramírez
3 Las mercedes que pedía para su salida: The Vilcabamba Inca
and the Spanish State, 1539–1572, Kerstin Nowack
4 Some Avatars of Death in New Spain’s Southeast, Elsa Malvido
Part II The Colonial Economy and Social
Transformation
5 Beyond the Indian/Ladino Dichotomy: Shifting Identities
in Colonial and Contemporary Chiapas, Mexico, Janine Gasco
6 Indigenous Production and Consumption of Cotton in Eighteenth-Century
Chiapas: Re-evaluating the Coercive Practices of the Reparto
de Efectos, Kevin Gosner
7 Recent Studies on Gender Relations in Colonial Native Andean
History, Nancy E. van Deusen
Part III New Politics and the End of
Hegemony
8 A Liminal Nobility: The Incas in the Middle Ground of Late
Colonial Peru, David Cahill
9 A Historical and Cultural Perspective on the 1814 Revolution
in Cuzco, Luis Miguel Glave
10 A Nationalist Movement without Nationalism: The Limits
of Imagined Community in Mexico, 1810–1821, Eric Van Young
Contributors
Index
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“Besides a short introductory essay
by David Cahill and Blanca Tovías, the book contains
ten articles that reassess in a variety of ways the social
and ethnic changes that occurred in the Andes and Mesoamerica
with the Spanish Conquest, the imposition of the colonial
order, and the coming of independence. Thus, the unifying
message of these essays is the need for flexibility in considering
the historical complexities of indigenous peoples under Spanish
colonialism and the dangers of overgeneralization. Selective
reading of the articles will reward most Andeanists and Mexicanists.”
Choice
“This multi-faceted volume on indigenous experience
in the Americas covers both Mesoamerica and the Andes as the
sub-title indicates, but also stretches from the time before
contact with Spain to the political break with that nation
that occurred in the early nineteenth century. Given the ‘messiness’
of identity formation in the colonial era, it should perhaps
come as no surprise that the book ends with contributions
that explore the indigenous relationship to the political
break with Spain. The latter is not traditionally seen as
a topic of direct relevance to ‘First Nations’
peoples, but in a volume that questions any and all dichotomies,
all topics become potentially relevant to indigenous experience.”
The result is an edited book tied thematically by a goal to
take ‘stock of this wealth of innovative research and
of comparing and contrasting the respective experiences of
native Mesoamerican and Andean peoples under Spanish colonial
rule (1492–1825)’ (p. i). This book is recommended
for classroom use and for those interested in comparative
studies of indigenous peoples in the Americas.” Colonial
Latin American Historical Review
“This important and imaginative collection of essays
brings together some of the most innovative scholars currently
working on indigenous societies during the Spanish American
colonial period. This is a field that has been evolving rapidly
in recent decades, and this volume makes no small contribution
to that transformation. Moving from the Conquest to Independence,
between Mesoamerica and the Andes, these historians offer
a rich stew of succinct syntheses, provocative insights, and
original, new findings – one that should appeal to the
appetites of specialists and students alike.” Matthew
Restall, Professor of Latin American History, Anthropology,
and Women's Studies, Director of Latin American Studies, Pennsylvania
State University
“This substantial collection
stretches across a historiographic divide that still often
separates studies of related themes in Mesoamerican and Andean
colonial settings. And it pushes persuasively past tired assumptions
about the kinds of interaction that ought to follow violent
conquest and dislocation. Cahill and Tovías’s
contributors raise big questions about social transformation
that should challenge others and re-open entire realms of
research. Their essays juxtapose everything from demography,
labour regimes and gender constructions, through cosmological
principles and appropriated written expression, to the revision
of reigning theories of identity formation and proto-national
mythmaking.” Kenneth Mills, Professor of History
and Director, Latin American Studies at the University of
Toronto
“This multi-faceted volume on indigenous
experience in the Americas … not only covers both Mesoamerica
and the Andes as the subtitle indicates, but also stretches
from the time before contact with Spain to the political break
with that nation that occurred in the early nineteenth century.
… As all conference-based volumes must, the book struggles
against the twin threats of dissonance and incoherence, but
it does so successfully in large measure and ends by making
a valuable contribution to the literature.
… Given the ‘messiness’ of identity formation
in the colonial era, it should perhaps come as no surprise
that the book ends with contributions that explore the indigenous
relationship to the political break with Spain. The latter
is not traditionally seen as a topic of direct relevance to
‘First Nations’ peoples, but in a volume that
questions any and all dichotomies, all topics become potentially
relevant to indigenous experience.” The Americas
“This edited volume, created out
of a 2002 conference at the University of New South Wales
in Australia, compares conquest and colonialism in the Andes
and Mesoamerica. The editors have grouped the essays –
five for each area – in roughly chronological order,
covering military conquests and an initial sizing up between
indigenous peoples and Europeans in the sixteenth century;
the solidifying of a colonial system in the seventeenth and
early eighteenth centuries; and the transition to nationhood
in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. …
The predominance of historiographical essays and summations
of already-published work makes New World, First Nations most
useful, perhaps, to those wanting to assess the state of a
field outside their own – the point of this comparative
exercise.” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History
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Publication Details
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Hardback ISBN: |
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978-1-903900-63-5 |
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Page Extent / Format: |
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304 pp. / 229 x 152 mm |
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Release Date: |
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January 2006 |
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Illustrated: |
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No |
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Hardback Price: |
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£55.00 / $67.50 |
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