Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

New Spain was arguably the most richly complex of the American colonial societies that were constructed after 1492. Two primary factors - a dense, sedentary, remarkably sophisticated indigenous population numbering in the many millions at the time of conquest, and the discovery of extraordinary deposits of silver soon after the Europeans arrived - converged to create this complexity. There is no surprise, therefore, that the twin topics (broadly considered) of Indians and mineral wealth have always been at the center of interest in colonial Mexico, from the time of Cortés and Moctezuma, through the centuries of Spanish administration, and on to the historical scholarship of more recent times. In recent decades a very broad range of social and cultural features of New Spain have attracted historians, as historical interest now increasingly reflects the complexities that characterized early Mexico. But even as the scholarship has widened, much of the most recent historiography - including some of the best work - continues to research time-honored, mainline themes: the initial Spanish-Indian encounters and the interaction that continued for centuries, the nature of ethnicity and identity, and the role of silver mining and silver-driven economies. Until rather recently the history of the native people of early New Spain was based almost exclusively on what was imagined to be the essential ... log in or subscribe to read full text