Invasion and Transformation: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico

Abstract

The selection of plates that forms the core of Invasion and Transformation offers the reader a chance to enter a virtual art museum illustrating the conquest of Mexico. The greatest merit of this book lies in the combination of illustrations of seventeenth-century art and artifacts of the Americas from the Jay I. Kislak Collection at the Library of Congress with the contributions of a substantial group of scholars. Given the weight of the illustrative element in this study, the structure of Invasion and Transformation can be analyzed in pictorial terms. Divided into three parts (plus a final coda about the Kislak paintings), the basic argument resembles a triptych. The main participants of the conquest are placed in the foreground. The four articles grouped in part 1 reflect on the historically accepted values attributed to Moteuczoma, Cortés, and Malinche. On one extreme stands Moteuczoma, the fearful and passive Aztec leader who abandoned himself to the eight omens that anticipated what was to come, thus bearing the guilt of Mexica’s defeat. On the other end looms Cortés, the brave hero famous not only for decimating a resistance that outnumbered the Spanish forces but also for being able to combine his dexterity at war with literary skills. Malinche serves as the ambivalent nexus between the two extremes, with emphasis on her active role as mediator in the sixteenth century. As Constance Cortez indicates in her article, Malinche’s role was downgraded to a premeditated passivity in the next century, due to a process of historical revision to accommodate the new reality of Spanish domination in the seventeenth century.In part 2, Matthew Restall’s chapter “Spanish Creation of the Conquest of Mexico” centers on the conquest in mythistorical terms. By “mythistory” Restall means “a vision of the historical past heavily infused with misconceptions and partisan interpretations so deeply rooted as to constitute legends or myths” (p. 94). This mythistorical vision allows him to consider the portrayal of conquistadors as soldiers in a royal army, the perception of native peoples by Spaniards, Cortés as the main driving force of the conquest, and finally the justification of the conquest on religious grounds. The transformation of history acquires a new dimension through the transformation of space. “The Conquest of Mexico and the Representation of Imperial Power in Baroque New Spain” by Michael J. Schreffler follows that train of thought. Some examples of seventeenth-century biombos (folding screens) and enconchados (paintings encrusted with shell) have traditionally been perceived as evidence to extol creole patriotism. This article reverses this traditional reading and demonstrates that these artistic forms could have been used to enhance Spanish imperial power, precisely at a time when the Spanish empire was in decline. Diana Magaloni-Kerpel closes part 2 with a detailed description of the prophetic world of the Mexica people. She focuses on the eight omens preserved in Sahagún’s Book 12 from the Florentine Codex to indicate that omens were not a random expression of the Mexica’s cosmogony. Instead they served a clear, preestablished purpose to create a prophetic history according to the Nahua calendar.The “Effects of Invasion” (part 3) are considered by Martha Few and Ximena Chávez Balderas, mainly in medical terms. These two authors focus their attention on Indian autopsy and epidemic disease during the conquest era.This is an extraordinary book of history accessible to a wide variety of audiences. Its interdisciplinary nature will provide newcomers with a rich list of topics about one of the most decisive events of colonial history. Scholars will find a challenging twist in traditionally accepted arguments about the conquest of Mexico. Most readers will be captivated.