Conquest of Mexico and Peru

Abstract

The traditional, master narrative of the momentous collision of worlds in 16th-century Mexico and Peru centers on small bands of Spaniards, who quickly overwhelmed indigenous peoples in the Western Hemisphere with their superior technology and leadership. That narrative, rooted in the accounts and perspectives of the Spanish conquistadors themselves, has until very recently dominated the historiography of “the Conquest,” as it has long been known. The years since the 1970s have seen monumental shifts in how scholars approach the period of “the Conquest,” stemming from two distinct historiographic currents, which together have driven complex revisions to the master narrative of “the Conquest.” The first is New Military History (NMH), which emphasizes the study of war and society. New military historians focus on social, cultural, and gendered aspects of war, as opposed to the set-piece tactical battle histories, unit histories, and biographies of famous generals. Though still interested in battle itself, the NMH came to emphasize larger implications of war. While the NMH hardly engaged directly with the Conquests of Mexico and Peru, its development widened the pool of scholars considered “military” historians, made the study of warfare widely accepted, increased the field’s diversity, and pushed military historians to be more theoretical. As NMH blurred the lines between military, social, and cultural history, a second shift took place, known as the New Conquest History (NCH). The NCH developed primarily within colonial Latin American history. During the last quarter of the 20th century, scholarship focusing on Latin America increasingly studied indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, and non-elite Spaniards, whose experiences in the Conquest period were largely ignored. The NCH gives indigenous-language sources particular attention, but also stresses newly found sources or the reinterpretation of familiar ones—be they written in Spanish or a native tongue, or a nontextual visual source—in order to reveal new protagonists and multiple perspectives on contact phenomena and Conquest moments. “The Conquest” is now seen as a protracted series of wars of invasion, resulting in slow and incomplete conquests of indigenous societies. Spanish-language literature published in Latin America is too vast to be included here. Instead we focus on English-language books and articles, which themselves will lead researchers into Spanish-language primary and secondary sources.