Latin American Originals – serie

Michael de Carvajal’s fascinating and unusual play—published by Luis Hurtado de Toledo in 1557—is a rare sixteenth-century theatrical piece about the conquest of the New World. It is a long-ignored but fundamental source for the study of Latin American cultural history. A theatrical version of the Spanish Conquest clearly influenced by Bartolomé de Las Casas, the play centers on a group of American natives filing a complaint against the Spanish conquistadors—before a tribunal presided over by Death. They denounce the horrors and crimes committed against them by the conquistadors and colonizers in their idolatrous greed for gold. The play constitutes an allegorical summary of the debates of the day about the emergence of the Spanish Empire, the justification of conquest, the right to wage war against the Indians, the evangelization of the natives, the discrimination against the newly converted peoples of the New World, the exploitation of Indian labor, the extent of the emperor’s sovereignty, and the right to resist tyranny. The translation by Carlos Jáuregui and Mark Smith-Soto is the first English edition of this important work. It is presented in an annotated, bilingual edition, with a critical introduction that discusses the origins and ideological significance of the play.

After invading highland Guatemala in 1524, Spaniards claimed to have smashed the Kaqchikel and K’iche’ Maya kingdoms and to have forged a new colony—with their leader, Pedro de Alvarado, as Guatemala’s conquistador. This volume shows that the real story of the Spanish invasion was very different. Designed to be an accessible introduction to the topic as well as a significant contribution to conquest scholarship, the volume presents for the first time English translations of firsthand accounts by Spaniards, Nahuas, and Mayas.Alvarado’s letters to Cortés, published here in English for the first time in almost a century, are supplemented with accounts by one of his cousins, by his brother Jorge, and by Bernal Díaz and Bartolomé de Las Casas. Nahua perspectives are presented in the form of pictorial evidence, along with written testimony by Tlaxcalan and Aztec veterans who fought as invading allies of the Spaniards; their claim to have done most of the fighting emerges as a powerful argument. The views of the invaded are represented by Kaqchikel and Tz’utujil accounts. Together, these sources reveal a fascinating multiplicity of perspectives and show how the conquest wars of the 1520s were a profoundly brutal moment in the history of the Americas.

In early April 1536, Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada led a military expedition from the coastal city of Santa Marta deep into the interior of what is today modern Colombia. With roughly eight hundred Spaniards and numerous native carriers and black slaves, the Jiménez expedition was larger than the combined forces under Hernando Cortés and Francisco Pizarro. Over the course of the one-year campaign, nearly three-quarters of Jiménez’s men perished, most from illness and hunger. Yet, for the 179 survivors, the expedition proved to be one of the most profitable campaigns of the sixteenth century. Unfortunately, the history of the Spanish conquest of Colombia remains virtually unknown.Through a series of firsthand primary accounts, translated into English for the first time, Invading Colombia reconstructs the compelling tale of the Jiménez expedition, the early stages of the Spanish conquest of Muisca territory, and the foundation of the city of Santa Fé de Bogotá. We follow the expedition from the Canary Islands to Santa Marta, up the Magdalena River, and finally into Colombia’s eastern highlands. These highly engaging accounts not only challenge many current assumptions about the nature of Spanish conquests in the New World, but they also reveal a richly entertaining, yet tragic, tale that rivals the great conquest narratives of Mexico and Peru.

Of great benefit for scholars and teachers, this is the first English translation and critical edition of a rare refutation of Bartolomé de las Casas’s famous 1552 Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, one of the most influential texts of the sixteenth century. The Defense and Discourse of the Western Conquests, written by the Spanish soldier Bernardo de Vargas Machuca about 1603, provides valuable insights into the other side of the debate over the morality of the Spanish conquest.

Of Cannibals and Kings collects the very earliest accounts of the native peoples of the Americas, including selections from the descriptions of Columbus’s first two voyages; documents reflecting the initial colonial occupation in Haiti, Venezuela, and Guyana; and the first ethnographic account of the Taínos by the missionary Ramón Pané. This primal anthropology directly guided a rapacious discovery of the lands of both wild cannibals and golden kings.

Gods of the Andes provides the first English translation of the earliest lengthy description of Inca religion, An Account of the Ancient Customs of the Natives of Peru (1594). The Account is part of a Jesuit tradition of ecumenical works on religion that encompasses the more famous writings of Matteo Ricci in China and Roberto de Nobili in India. It includes original descriptions of many different aspects of Inca religion, including human sacrifice, the use of hallucinogens, mummification rituals, the existence of transgendered priests in the ancient Andes, divination rituals based on animal entrails, oracles, burials, and confession. In her introductory chapters, Sabine Hyland presents the controversial life of the ascribed author, Blas Valera, a Jesuit who was ultimately imprisoned and exiled by the Jesuits for his “heretical” belief that the Incas worshipped the same creator god the Christians did; examines the Account in the light of other colonial writings about the Incas; and outlines what we know about Inca religion through other sources, comparing Valera’s version to those of other writers.

Beginning in the sixteenth century, ecclesiastics and others created religious texts written in the native languages of the Nahua and Yucatec Maya. These texts played an important role in the evangelization of central Mexico and Yucatan. Translated Christianities is the first book to provide readers with English translations of a variety of Nahuatl and Maya religious texts. It pulls Nahuatl and Maya sermons, catechisms, and confessional manuals out of relative obscurity and presents them to the reader in a way that illustrates similarities, differences, and trends in religious text production throughout the colonial period. The texts included in this work are diverse. Their authors range from Spanish ecclesiastics to native assistants, from Catholics to Methodists, and from sixteenth-century Nahuas to nineteenth-century Maya. Although translated from its native language into English, each text illustrates the impact of European and native cultures on its content. Medieval tales popular in Europe are transformed to accommodate a New World native audience, biblical figures assume native identities, and texts admonishing Christian behavior are tailored to meet the demands of a colonial native population. Moreover, the book provides the first translation and analysis of a Methodist catechism written in Yucatec Maya to convert the Maya of Belize and Yucatan. Ultimately, readers are offered an uncommon opportunity to read for themselves the translated Christianities that Nahuatl and Maya texts contained.

For many years, scholars of the conquest worked to shift focus away from the Spanish perspective and bring attention to the often-ignored voices and viewpoints of the Indians. But recent work that highlights the “Indian conquistadors” has forced scholars to reexamine the simple categories of conqueror and subject and to acknowledge the seemingly contradictory roles assumed by native peoples who chose to fight alongside the Spaniards against other native groups. The Native Conquistador—a translation of the “Thirteenth Relation,” written by don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl in the early seventeenth century—narrates the conquest of Mexico from Hernando Cortés’s arrival in 1519 through his expedition into Central America in 1524. The protagonist of the story, however, is not the Spanish conquistador but Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s great-great-grandfather, the native prince Ixtlilxochitl of Tetzcoco. This account reveals the complex political dynamics that motivated Ixtlilxochitl’s decisive alliance with Cortés. Moreover, the dynamic plotline, propelled by the feats of Prince Ixtlilxochitl, has made this a compelling story for centuries—and one that will captivate students and scholars today.

The History of the New World is an abridged, unique English translation of sixteenth-century Italian merchant Girolamo Benzoni’s popular account of his adventures in the Americas and the Spanish colonies.First published in Venice in 1565, Benzoni’s book was an immediate best seller and available in at least five languages before the end of the century. It spanned the years 1541–56, providing detailed descriptions of native flora and fauna, exciting narration of harrowing exploits, and a surprisingly critical perspective on the expanding Spanish Empire’s methods of conquest and governance, in which Benzoni highlighted the struggles of indigenous peoples. This edition follows the three-book structure of the original account but focuses on Benzoni’s own experiences, omitting episodes to which he was not a witness and excising repetition and hyperbolic hearsay.The first English-language version published since 1847, this volume includes an informative introduction and annotations that situate Benzoni and his fascinating writings in the larger context of Spanish colonial conquest. Perfect for classroom use, this is a lively, vivid firsthand account of the adventure and wonder of the New World.

Contesting Conquest presents an important set of indigenous and Spanish accounts that document Spain’s efforts to establish control over western Mexico during the first half of the sixteenth century.Though the 1521 defeat of the Mexica of Tenochtitlan signaled the downfall of the Aztec empire, large areas outside of central Mexico still remained beyond the Spaniards’ control. Home to groups such as the Maya of present-day Yucatan and Guatemala and the diverse peoples of western Mexico, these regions were remarkably resilient in the face of Spanish conquest. Ida Altman provides the first English translations of a set of accounts that directly reflect the perspectives of these indigenous peoples. These include a chronicle of Mendoza’s campaign during the Mixton War, a letter from the exiled rebel leader Tenamaztle, and an account written by or on behalf of the rulers of the indigenous community of Xalisco. The narratives are supplemented by translations from Spanish sources that shed light on indigenous-Spanish interaction and conflict. Together these accounts provide insights into indigenous struggles and illuminate the resistance met by their would-be conquerors.Providing multiple perspectives on Spanish campaigns to conquer modern-day Mexico and giving indigenous voices equal weight to that of the conquistadores, this book is an essential counterpoint to standard narratives of the Spanish conquest. It will be especially useful to students and scholars of Latin American colonial history.

This volume is the first complete English translation and annotated study of Bartolomé de Las Casas’s important and provocative 1552 treatise commonly known as the Confesionario or Avisos y reglas. A text that generated controversy, like Las Casas’s more famous Brevísima relación, the Confesionario outlined a strikingly novel and arguably harsh use of confession for those administering the sacrament to conquistadores, encomenderos, slaveholders, settlers, and others who had harmed the indigenous people, thus using magisterial authority and jurisdictional power to promote restitution.David Orique addresses how, from 1516 to 1547, Las Casas subscribed to and wrote about the theory and practice of the doctrine of restitution. He then presents the specific historical context of the development of the initial manuscript of the Confesionario in 1547 as Doce reglas (Twelve Rules), which later became the augmented Confesionario manuscript. Orique’s commentary on the 1552 Confesionario treatise highlights how Las Casas’s Argumento, and its approval by theologians, legitimates his work. Orique outlines the various guidelines proposed to confessors to identify, investigate, and seek restitution from offending Spaniards based on their possessions and circumstances. He also explores Las Casas’s use of the Thomistic tripartite scheme of divine, natural, and human law.With insightful analysis and commentary accompanied by an eminently readable translation, To Heaven or to Hell will be especially useful to students and scholars of Latin American colonial history, early modern religion, and Catholic studies.

In 1786, Guatemalan priest Pedro José de Arrese published a work instructing readers on their duty to perform the cesarean operation on the bodies of recently deceased pregnant women in order to extract the fetus while it was still alive. Although the fetus’s long-term survival was desired, the overarching goal was to cleanse the unborn child of original sin and ensure its place in heaven. Baptism Through Incision presents Arrese’s complete treatise—translated here into English for the first time—with a critical introduction and excerpts from related primary source texts.Inspired by priests’ writings published in Spain and Sicily beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, Arrese and writers like him in Peru, Mexico, Alta California, Guatemala, and the Philippines penned local medico-religious manuals and guides for performing the operation and baptism. Comparing these texts to one another and placing them in dialogue with archival cases and print culture references, this book traces the genealogy of the postmortem cesarean operation throughout the Spanish Empire and reconstructs the transatlantic circulation of obstetrical and scientific knowledge around childbirth and reproduction. In doing so, it shows that knowledge about cesarean operations and fetal baptism intersected with local beliefs and quickly became part of the new ideas and scientific-medical advancements circulating broadly among transatlantic Enlightenment cultures.A valuable resource for scholars and students of colonial Latin American history, the history of medicine, and the history of women, reproduction, and childbirth, Baptism Through Incision includes translated excerpts of works by Spanish surgeon Jaime Alcalá y Martínez, Mexican physician Ignacio Segura, and Peruvian friar Francisco González Laguna, as well as late colonial Guatemalan instructions, and newspaper articles published in the Gazeta de México, the Gazeta de Guatemala, and the Mercurio Peruano.

This book presents a unique set of written records belonging to the De la Cruz family, caciques of Tepemaxalco in the Toluca Valley. Composed in Nahuatl and Spanish and available here both in the original languages and in English translation, this collection of documents opens a window onto the life of a family from colonial Mexico’s indigenous elite and sheds light on the broader indigenous world within the Spanish colonial system.The main text is a record created in 1647 by long-serving governor don Pedro de la Cruz and continued by his heirs through the nineteenth century, along with two wills and several other notable documents. These sources document a community history, illuminating broader issues centering on politics, religion, and economics as well as providing unusual insight into the concerns and values of indigenous leaders. These texts detail the projects financed by the De la Cruz family, how they talked about them, and which belongings they deemed important enough to pass along after their death. Designed for classroom use, this clear and concise primary source includes a wealth of details about indigenous everyday life and preserves and makes accessible a rich and precious heritage. The engaging introduction highlights issues of class relations and the public and performative character of Nahua Christianity. The authors provide the necessary tools to help students understand the colonial context in which these documents were produced.

An Irish Rebel in New Spain recounts the story of the so-called Irish Zorro, who, in 1659, was burned at the stake for conspiring against the empire to make himself king of Mexico, restore the privileges of the Indigenous people, end the persecution of the Jews, and free the African slaves.William Lamport was an Irish rebel, a soldier, a poet, and a thinker. His Catholic family lost their land and their religious freedom after the English conquest of Ireland. In 1640, Lamport emigrated to New Spain, where he witnessed the abuses of the colonial system and later ran afoul of the Mexican Inquisition. Imprisoned in 1642, Lamport argued his own defense as well as that of the Jews who were in prison with him. Along with a concise biography, this volume provides an anthology of Lamport’s most representative writings: his detailed project for a Spanish-supported Irish insurrection; a manifesto and plan for a Mexican uprising against Spain; his self-defense, which he nailed to the doors of the cathedral when he managed to momentarily escape from prison; a selection of his poetry; and the court documents about the accusation that led him to the pyre.This concise, compelling, and original reflection on the systems of (in)justice in seventeenth-century Mexico is designed for classes on early modern Spain, colonial Latin America, and the Inquisition. Those with an affinity for Irish history will also enjoy learning about the colorful life of William Lamport.

Published in 1557, Nikolaus Federmann’s Jndianische Historia is a fascinating narrative describing the German military commander’s incursion into what is now Venezuela. Designed not only for classroom use but also for the use of scholars, this English translation is accompanied by a critical introduction that contextualizes Federmann’s firsthand account within the broader Spanish colonial system.Having gained the rights to colonize Venezuela from the Spanish Crown in 1528, the Welser merchant house of Augsburg, Germany, sent mercenaries, settlers, and miners to set up colonial structures. The venture never turned a profit, and operations ceased in 1546 after two Welser officials were murdered. Federmann’s text gives an account of his foray into the interior of Venezuela in 1530–31. It describes violent first contact with Indigenous peoples as well as Federmann’s communication strategies, how he managed to prevail in hostile terrain, and how he related to other agents of the conquests. It also documents his unwavering belief in the intrinsic preeminence of European Christians and, ultimately, in the righteousness of his mission.The only detailed record of this incursion, Federmann’s text adds a unique and important perspective to our understanding of first colonial contact on the Caribbean coast of South America. It provides insight into the first-contact dynamic, the techniques of subjugation and dominance, and the web of diverging interests among stakeholders. This volume will be a valuable resource for courses and for scholarship on conquest and colonialism in Latin America.

In 1719, a deadly and highly contagious disease took hold of the Imperial Villa of Potosí, a silver mining metropolis in what is now Bolivia. Within a year, the pathogen had killed some 22,000 people, just over a third of the city’s residents. Victims collapsed with fever, body aches, and effusions of blood from the nose and mouth. Most died within days. The great Andean pandemic of 1717–22 was likely the most destructive disease to strike South America since the days of the Spanish conquest.Pandemic in Potosí features the single longest narrative of this nearly forgotten period, penned by local historian Bartolomé Arzáns de Orsúa y Vela, along with shorter treatments of the disease’s ravages in Cuzco, Arequipa, and the outskirts of Lima. The “Gran Peste,” as it was called, was a pivotal event about which Arzáns wrote at length because he lived through it, but also because it was believed to have cosmic significance. Kris Lane translates and contextualizes Arzáns’s account, which is rich in local detail that sheds light on a range of topics—from therapeutics, devotional life, class relations, gender, and race to conceptions of illness, sin, and human will and responsibility during a major public health crisis.Original narratives of the pandemic, translated here for the first time, help readers see commonalities and differences between past and present disease encounters. Designed for use in courses on Latin American history, this concise work will also interest scholars and students of the history of religion, history of medicine, urban studies, and epidemiology.

In 1792 in rural San Salvador, Juana Aguilar was accused of committing what the authorities called a “heinous” crime. Aguilar was suspected of being a “hermaphrodite,” and while this in and of itself was not a crime, determining Aguilar’s sex would resolve whether the relationships Aguilar had with women were criminal. Aguilar’s possessions were confiscated, the accused was placed in jail, and a long criminal case ensued. Over the course of this case, almost a dozen medical experts examined Aguilar’s person, and Aguilar escaped imprisonment twice before finally being apprehended in distant Guatemala City. In an age when medicine and science were gaining ever more authority in the process of construing identity, the legal authorities of colonial Central America relied heavily on doctors and midwives to determine what Aguilar “really was.” For decades, Aguilar’s case fell out of view, and scholars believed the only extant source was the examination notes of a medical expert who testified for the court. With this volume, the entire case—with testimony from the defendant, depositions and witness statements, inventories of Aguilar’s belongings, and new details about Aguilar’s intrepid escapes from prison—is made available in English. Sellers-García translates and contextualizes Aguilar’s account and brings to the forefront issues and problems that we wrestle with today: the policing of supposed sexual deviance, the reliance on medicine for the creation of identity categories, and the criminalization of gender difference.While Aguilar’s experience was unique, it reveals broad and surprising truths about how the institutions of colonial Central America confronted difference. The volume offers readers an opportunity to engage with rare primary sources and will be especially valuable to students of gender and sexuality studies, the history of medicine, legal history, and the history of Latin America.

The Conquest That Never Was uncovers one of the most ambitious but disastrous campaigns of the early colonial period. Pedro de Alvarado—best known as Cortés’s lieutenant in Mexico and later as the conqueror of Guatemala—sought to extend his fame and fortune by seizing Quito in the northern Inca Empire. Instead, his massive fleet and army met ruin in the high Andes, leaving Alvarado humiliated and forcing him to transfer his forces to rival conquistadors.This volume traces Alvarado’s career after Guatemala, focusing on the ill-fated expedition of 1534 as well as his unrealized license to conquer the Spice Islands, his involvement in the Spanish conquest of Ecuador, and his eventual death in battle in Mexico. Drawing on transatlantic correspondence, legal testimony, Spanish chronicles, and a Maya-authored history, Lovell reconstructs both the trajectory of Alvarado’s campaigns and the mind of a conquistador driven by greed and glory. Vivid descriptions carry readers from Guatemala’s rainforests to the snowbound passes of the Andes, revealing how fragile imperial ambitions could be in practice.By documenting Alvarado’s failed bid to contest Pizarro in Peru, The Conquest That Never Was complicates the triumphalist narrative of Spanish expansion. It illuminates the contradictions, rivalries, and violence at the heart of the colonial project, while foregrounding Indigenous labor and suffering in conquest. Designed for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses, the book also offers scholars of Latin American history, historical geography, and the Andes a gripping case study of imperial aspiration and collapse.

The Epic of Florida brings to light a neglected tradition of colonial poetry from the sixteenth century. Written in response to dramatic encounters on the peninsula—Ponce de León’s landfall in 1513, the founding of St. Augustine in 1565, and ongoing conflicts among European empires and Native peoples—these works capture how early modern writers transformed violent and uncertain events into epic verse.This classroom-ready volume presents three substantial poems: Juan de Castellanos’s Elegy to Ponce de León, Bartolomé de Flores’s Memoir of the Happy Result, and Alonso Gregorio de Escobedo’s La Florida. Each text is introduced with clear headnotes and annotations, and a critical introduction situates la Florida within the broader imperial, cultural, and religious context of the Spanish Golden Age. Comparative “galleries” offer additional sources to help students understand how early poets interpreted exploration, conquest, and missionary encounters.By recovering this overlooked corpus, The Epic of Florida reframes colonial American literature as a multilingual, transatlantic project that predates the United States. The volume makes long and difficult poems accessible and engaging for classroom use, while opening new directions for research. It is ideal for courses in world literature, American and Latin American studies, and colonial history and will also interest Latin Americanists, scholars of Spanish and US literature, and general readers drawn to the early cultural history of Florida.