Invading History

Mesoamerican Voices presents a different view of the conquest by examining the voices of Native Americans, focusing on the themes of diversity and shared historical experiences. Mesoamerican society was complex, the editors claim, because of the diverse geography of the region. Though the Spanish imposed their rule, Mesoamericans typically found ways to carry on many of the same practices, often combining the new and traditional. The assimilation was often gradual.

Using sources such as letters, wills, political minutes, and legal testimonies, the editors examine many aspects of Native culture, concluding that aspects of society from political to legal to religious largely found ways to fuse traditions. For example, the heads of the cabildo were typically rotated between already established nobles. Other documents prove that Native culture was complex and worthy of being called civilized, as reflected by complex moral and philosophical codes. The work speaks to the true nature of the conquest, that the Mesoamerican population was not truly overcome.

An interesting juxtaposition of assimilation is found in the fact that one of the easiest religious ideas to accept was the idea of a large cult of saints. Perhaps a more complex acceptance can be seen in the Catholic idea of penitence, as seen on page 156, “… perhaps what is happening to people, disease or something else, or whatever it should be that is frightening and shocking, wherever such things happen to people as have happened to us here in Mexico now, happens because of our sins, perhaps through his anger, and is fitting.” The idea of an angry god taking vengeance on sinful subjects is nothing new to Mesoamericans. All that is missing is the required sacrifices to pacify the god.

Invading Guatemala focuses strictly on the actual fighting, providing firsthand accounts of the Spanish conquest of Guatemala, portraying it as much more violent than that of Mexico. The first part of the work establishes the background, chiefly explaining the success of the conquest, which was actually only a tenuous triumph until the second wave, as a result of the Spanish use of Nahua allies over a region not consolidated as commonly assumed, but full of infighting. The editors then turn to the firsthand account to bust the myths of the Spanish conquest of Guatemala.

The first section features the letters of Pedro de Alvarado, which seem little more than the self-justifying bravado of Cortes. The subsequent Spanish texts show a slightly different picture, that the conquest was much more difficult than portrayed by Alvarado, that he was not the one primarily responsible for the conquest (though publishing seems to have established him as the victor), and that the conquest was much more barbarous than portrayed, perhaps bordering on genocide.

The Nahua accounts portray them as equal allies in the conquest who received much less than they bargained for in the partnership. The Maya accounts portray the brutality of the conquest and the subsequent disillusionment of those that allied themselves with the Spanish.

So how does the reader reconcile such drastically different claims? Even with the claims not written by the Spanish, the motives must be addressed. A historian must function as something of an intellectual police interrogator, sifting through presentations that purposefully twist the truth to their own ends.

As for the specific myth of a quick conquest, Bernal Diaz compares Alvarado to Alexander the Great. Robin Lane Fox, a biographer of Alexander, claims that he conquered little more than the main roads of Asia, leaving the power structure largely intact as long as the conquered paid tribute. Perhaps if that is the standard by which Alvarado and other Europeans measured their conquests, this one was successful.