Conquest?

Rereading the Conquest, by James Krippner-Martinez, examines the Spanish conquest of Mexico by focusing on the constantly challenged process of subduing Michoacan. At issue is how political and economic concerns influenced the historical narrative, making the study one of the intersection of religion, politics, and the writing of history. In the process, the author takes a closer look at selective recording in historical documents and the subsequent partial reconstruction by historians, revealing the filters through which history is seen, and reaching “tentative understandings” of his subjects.

The first section of the book, based on primary documents, features three essays in chronological order, examining representations of the events and actors of first generation contact. Two themes addressed through the work are the brutality of the military campaign and the distinctive role of the Catholic Church. The first essay claims the execution of the Cazonci demonstrated Spanish consolidation over the region. The act was a contested moment and the document was created, using selected evidence, to justify the actor, Nuno de Guzman. The act was done out of frustration for failing to achieve a swift conquest, and the torture was a demonstration of humiliation and control. To add to the story, the victim might have seen himself as more of a partner than subject in the arrangement with the Spanish. Attacked are the myths of the passive native and the brutal conquistador. The second essay examines encounters between missionaries and indigenous peoples, the results of a collaboration between the cultures that suggests an accepted role. It also reveals the political and social struggles between the church and state and challenges the humiliation of the conquest. The third essay examines the case of Vasco de Quiroga, finding him to be humane for his time if not paternalistic and ethnocentric. The study, which the author claims must be understood in the context of the conquest, also shows that the continuing conflict gave the indigenous peoples room to operate.

The second section examines the same history through the passage of time. The first essay reexamines the missionary contact between the Spanish and indigenous peoples. That there was a continual need for evangelism, the author argues, suggests there was a continued rejection of Catholicism. The myth of divine ordination is thus challenged, as the spiritual conquest was open ended. The essay also argues that atrocities were an aberration. The documents examined show history through the struggles of the era in which they were written. The last chapter reexamines Vasco de Quiroga, claiming that multiple images of him emerged and that and that his heroism is a modern construct, an after the fact creation. In the conclusion, the author argues that the church was complicit in the conquest and that this fact must be accepted to truly understand the history of the era, though the work does not methodically lead to this conclusion.

Looking at primary historical documents requires understanding the multiple filters through which it disseminated, something of which the author aptly demonstrates. Even when the documents are decidedly written on behalf of one faction, as in the ones examined, reading between the lines shows much about the other side of the story, as the documents of Rereading the Conquest show much about the indigenous population in the absence of their own primary documents, though the author admits he cannot fully recover history. Through the subtleties of the text, the documents show us much about the conquest, chiefly that it was a process and not an event as the Spanish never culturally subdued the indigenous population. Indeed, the work focuses on culture and largely omits the military conquest, which serves to challenge more myths than typical studies. Most importantly, it avoids casting the conquest in terms of either the black legend or the white legend. By focusing on multiple layers of Spanish actors (the church versus the state, for example), the Spanish might be self-serving even if they evade further concrete classification. By examining the multiple hierarchies of indigenous peoples, albeit in between the lines, the native population might be seen as nominally controlled but otherwise far from subdued. Indeed, the very use of the word conquest must be challenged.