This book represents the best single exposition currently available of the recent revisionist trend in Mesoamerican conquest history which recognises that indigenous allies played a far more important and extensive role than scholars have generally acknowledged. The editors and the press are to be commended for producing an edited volume that avoids the usual problem inherent in such endeavours, namely lack of integration among the chapters. Following an introduction by Susan Schroeder and an opening analytical chapter by Michel R. Oudijk and Matthew Restall, the book features eight empirical chapters covering various aspects of indigenous participation in the Conquest and ranging geographically from all over Mesoamerica.
For non-specialists, the introduction by Schroeder will be most useful. She delineates four successive trends in the historiography of the Conquest: the epic Spanish conquest, the spiritual conquest, loser history or the conquest of Mexico as nonevent, and Indians as conquistadores. The latter is slowly but surely becoming the dominant trend, and Schroeder expectably gives it extensive treatment which also includes a brief overview of the other chapters. Schroeder offers thoughtful insights on the motivations of indigenous conquistadors, an issue that always arises when one comes to an awareness of the extent of participation of native Mesoamericans in the Conquest.
Oudijk and Restall provide an overview of Mesoamerican conquistadors in the sixteenth century, providing exquisite detail in four broad categories: the large numbers of native auxiliaries, the ubiquity of native conquistadors, the diverse capacities in which native allies served, and the Spanish conquest as a continuation of pre-conquest patterns of conquest and imperial domination. Oudijk and Restall themselves admit that this last idea is somewhat problematic, but it certainly merits examination. Obviously, the Spanish conquistadors followed Iberian traditions and patterns that had developed since Medieval times, most of them rooted in the Reconquista, but once they arrived in Mexico the implementation of these behaviours was influenced, even guided and limited, by distinctly Mesoamerican parameters with ancient roots running as deeply in time as the Spanish antecedents.
The empirical chapters present specific case studies, most derived from their authors' current research available in monographs or doctoral dissertations. Florine Asselbergs discusses her fascinating work on the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan, and the Lienzo de Analco, pictorial histories that attest to native agency and identity formation among displaced indigenous conquistadors in the early post-conquest era. The chapter by Yanna Yannakakis should be read in conjunction with that of Asselbergs. Yannakakis treats a relatively unknown and somewhat enigmatic case: the (probably) Tlaxcalteca auxiliary forces that fought in the conquest of the Zapotecs of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca. Much of the evidence derives from the Lienzo de Analco, also discussed by Asselbergs. An unusual aspect here is that the indigenous allies that remained in Analco assimilated into the local population. They lost the royal decrees that had granted them privileges, and they became ‘local Indians’, thus, their original ethnic identity remains uncertain.
Laura Matthew discusses the role of Nahua, Zapotec, and Mixtec allies in the conquest of Central America (mainly Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras). She relies heavily on data from a prodigious document in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville (known as Justicia 291) which provides testimony, taken over the course of more than six decades (from 1564 to 1639), from leading Spanish and indigenous conquistadors residing in Soconusco, Chiapas; Almolonga (Ciudad Vieja), Guatemala; San Salvador and San Miguel, El Salvador; and Comayagua and Gracias a Dios, Honduras. All confirm the massive participation of native conquistadors from central Mexico and Oaxaca in the conquest of Central America. The purpose was to seek redress for the lack of compensation to the native allies that had settled in Central America after the Conquest, an objective not achieved. Not only did they not receive compensation, but they continued paying tribute to the Crown long after the Conquest. The case was finally resolved in 1639 with a decree of reduced tribute and exemption from personal service. Matthew considers the outcome to be an important but limited victory for the plaintiffs, primarily in a cultural sense.
Robinson Herrera tells a somewhat less melancholic story as he examines the role of native women from central Mexico in the conquest of Guatemala, focusing prominently on the Tlaxcalteca princesses doña Luisa and doña Lucía Xicotencatl, consorts, respectively, of Pedro and Jorge de Alvarado. Their mestizo descendants played important roles in sixteenth-century colonial Guatemalan society, although, with the exception of Pedro's and Luisa's daughter, Leonor de Alvarado, little is known about them. Herrera highlights the significance of indigenous noblewomen and their unions with ‘Spaniards of distinction’ as a means of consolidating alliances following the ancient Mesoamerican custom of elite marriage exchange to form political alliances.
Ida Altman examines the conquest of Nueva Galicia (Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Aguascalientes, and parts of Sinaloa, Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosí), contrasting the brutal entrada of Nuño de Guzmán with the less chaotic conquest, carried out by Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, which came to be known as the Mixton War. Native allies from central Mexico and Michoacán fared much better in the second campaign, and Altman presents the striking case of don Francisco de Sandoval Acacitli, lord of Tlalmanalco in the province of Chalco at the southern end of the Basin of Mexico. This extraordinary warrior responded to Mendoza's call for troops in 1540, served with distinction commanding a regiment of Chalco troops, and returned to Mexico City with great honour and acclaim. What makes don Francisco unique, however, is that he commissioned his own personal account of the war which Altman has employed to great effect. In a later chapter, Bret Blosser picks up later events in Nueva Galicia with his analysis of flechero (archer) service provided by the Mexica, Tarascans, Otomí and Huichol.
John Chuchiak provides a detailed study of Indian conquistadors in the Montejo expeditions of 1526 to 1550 in Honduras and Yucatán. Chuchiak points out that historians have all but ignored the indigenous participation in the Montejo campaigns, and he demonstrates through impressive archival documentation that their involvement was absolutely crucial. Without them, the conquest of Yucatán by the Montejos would have been impossible. These allied forces numbered in the thousands; Chuchiak estimates approximately 4,000 active combatants and as many as 9,000 serving as porters, servants and slaves. They were probably the most ethnically diverse of all the native allied armies in the wars of conquest in Mesoamerica. They were pressed into service from central Mexico (especially Xochimilco and Atzcapotzalco), the Gulf Coast region, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guatemala and El Salvador. Note the absence of troops from Tlaxcallan. This seems to be the only major war of conquest in Mesoamerica that did not involve Tlaxcalteca forces.
Matthew and Oudijk state in their conclusion to the volume that a major goal is ‘to complicate the term “Indian conquistador”. The Tlaxcalteca are without a doubt the most famous Mesoamerican allies of the Spanish’ (p. 319). This book sets a new standard in making it absolutely clear that many other (shall we say, most if not all?) Mesoamerican groups voluntarily allied with the Spaniards at different times and places for their own purposes. Others were pressed into service against their will. If the editors and authors of this volume sought complication, they have achieved their goal. Many questions and issues remain, and this book charts many possible routes in the future historiography of the ‘conquest of Mexico’, a term that now seems too inclusive or altogether inaccurate when one takes the Indian conquistadors and their actions into full account.
The contributors to this book would agree that their recent research represents the beginning, not the culmination, of the historiographic trend to pay more attention to the Indian conquistadors. One important way to advance further will be to integrate the historical and archaeological data regarding contacts between Spanish and Indian conquistadors, a task not attempted or intended in the present work, but one that is clearly feasible.
