Archivo General De Indias Research Articles

Introducción al estudio de los navegantes vascos de la carrera de Indias y su participación en la trata atlántica de esclavos del siglo XVI

En el presente artículo analizamos el papel desempeñado por los mareantes vascos en la trata esclavista castellana del siglo XVI, con especial atención a dos figuras clave: el transportista de esclavos y el navegante-comerciante. Esta propuesta no pretende ser exhaustiva, sino plantear un esquema preliminar de cara a futuros estudios, sugerir una serie de nombres y perfiles a los que seguir la pista y sondear las posibilidades de investigación que esta temática nos ofrece en el marco de la documentación conservada en los archivos hispalenses, fundamentalmente la registral del Archivo General de Indias y la notarial del Archivo Histórico Provincial de Sevilla.

La circulación del libro entre España y el virreinato del Perú a fines del siglo XVIII

El presente artículo estudia la circulación del libro entre España y el virreinato peruano a finales del siglo XVIII. A partir de una revisión sistemática, efectuada en el fondo Real Aduana del Archivo General de la Nación del Perú, analiza 48 cargamentos con libros que fueron importados de Cádiz al Callao entre 1779 y 1789, con el fin de ser vendidos en Lima y, en menor medida, en otras ciudades como Santiago de Chile, Cuzco y Guayaquil. El texto está dividido en dos secciones. En la primera, revisa el marco de la historia cultural del libro y la bibliografía existente, para concluir que, sin perjuicio de sus valiosos aportes, esta se ha centrado en los siglos XVI a XVII y no ha examinado los «registros de entrada» del Callao, sino únicamente los «registros de ida» conservados en el Archivo General de Indias. En la segunda sección se presenta una primera evaluación del corpus revisado, que confronta los datos obtenidos con la información ya conocida sobre el tráfico del libro hacia el Perú. Esto permite concluir, entre otras ideas de interés, que la época estudiada se caracteriza por una secularización del material bibliográfico —en gran medida por el incremento de los libros científicos—; la coexistencia de materiales tradicionales y modernos; la plena compenetración de los impresores españoles con el mercado virreinal —que recibía sus ediciones el mismo año en el que aparecían o poco después—; y la efectiva recepción de los libros importados por parte de los habitantes del virreinato.

Aportaciones a la biografía artística del corógrafo Antonio Mancelli: su producción americana

El presente artículo da a conocer dos documentos del Archivo General de Indias que aportan datos a la biografía y producción artística de Mancelli.

La política matrimonial sobre los empleados públicos en Indias y los montepíos oficiales en las postrimerías del período colonial

Uno de los motivos principales de los montepíos oficiales coloniales creados en el siglo XVIII fue asegurar de manera prioritaria a esposas e hijos de los empleados públicos con destino en Ultramar. Son objetivos del presente trabajo analizar las condiciones que establecen los montepíos para el beneficio de las pensiones a viudas y huérfanos, y la normativa relativa a las interdicciones regias que afectaba directamente a los matrimonios de los socios en los montes y al régimen de viudedad. Se han consultado algunos reglamentos generados por aquellas instituciones, así como distintas leyes y reales órdenes, que supusieron más obstáculos que beneficios para los afiliados y las viudas y huérfanos de ministros y otros empleados de rangos inferiores. Se destaca el recurso ampliamente utilizado por el colectivo para obtener una pensión o ayuda por vía de gracia, a través del estudio de una serie de peticiones y expedientes consultados en el Archivo General de Indias.

Florida's Lost Galleon: The Emanuel Point Shipwreck ed. by Roger C. Smith

Reviewed by: Florida's Lost Galleon: The Emanuel Point Shipwreck ed. by Roger C. Smith Lynn B. Harris Florida's Lost Galleon: The Emanuel Point Shipwreck. Edited by Roger C.Smith. Foreword by Elizabeth D. Benchley. (Gainesville and other cities: University Press of Florida, 2018. Pp. xx, 299, $34.95 ISBN 978-0-8130-5676-0.) Four hundred years after Tristán de Luna y Arellano led an ill-starred Spanish expedition of exploration to settle the Florida frontier and lost six ships in a hurricane, Roger C. Smith, state underwater archaeologist for the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research, led his team in the thrilling discovery of the shipwreck known as Emanuel Point I Ship in Pensacola Bay. This substantive book integrates the colorful historical narrative from Spanish manuscripts with archaeological evidence from artifacts recovered from the wreck, possibly Luna's flagship. The authors, who were part of the archaeological team, vividly convey the excitement of historical research and the discovery of the lost galleon, as well as the tedium and the challenges of the archaeological process. John E. Worth, an associate professor at the University of West Florida, spent three months in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain, researching primary documents. The accounts found there document details of the Luna entrada voyage, including the financing, construction, purchase, and lease of six 100-ton ships and the logistical planning deemed necessary to support a successful voyage of exploration and colonization. This planning included the recommended drafts for vessels to enter and leave rivers and bays on the Florida coast, the number of horses and men on board, an itemized list of more than a million pounds of food, and the number of artillery pieces needed to defend the ships against Indians. Sources reveal that the Spanish crown financed acquisition of the fleet and payment of the officers and crew, reflecting the importance of the mission. Fascinating details emerge about the members of the expedition, who included, among others, cavalry, infantry, royal treasury officials, Dominican missionaries, craftsmen to construct new towns, soldiers' wives and children, black servants, and Indians. Underwater archaeologists James D. Spirek and Joseph Cozzi supplement the historical research with data from archaeological investigations. Their chapter introduces readers to the importance of asking specific research questions to prioritize areas of excavation and to address concerns about site preservation and the spatial distribution and provenance of finds. The discussion of archaeological methodology encompasses the systematic search for [End Page 138] the wreck, the creation of a mapping grid, and the careful removal of ballast stones and sediment layers to reveal the cargo beneath. Ultimately, the excavations uncovered 40 percent of the wreck of a large sixteenth-century ship—the most likely candidates, based on construction and wood analysis, are the San Andres, Luna's flagship Jesús, or the vice flagship San Juan de Ulúa. John R. Bratten analyzes a plethora of artifacts encountered on the wreck and restored in his laboratory. The team recovered more than 5,300 items—cookware, dinnerware, seeds and nuts, armament and armor, coins, ships' hardware, and apothecary artifacts—that provide new clues about diet, defense, and ship design. Among the assemblage were preserved remains of pigs, goats, cows, chickens, and fish. Studies of unwanted stowaways, such as cockroaches, hide beetles, rats, and mice, support hypotheses that ships carried well-established populations that voyaged with colonists to the New World. The book also describes the development of the discipline of maritime archaeology and public outreach efforts in Florida through the establishment of a vibrant, funded academic program at the University of West Florida. While details of ship construction may lose the nonspecialist reader, this captivating book is a literary landmark detailing Florida's colonial experience, and it is a compelling text for any student of maritime history and archaeology. Lynn B. Harris East Carolina University Copyright © 2019 The Southern Historical Association

Affonso de Taunay e as duas versões do mapa de D. Luis de Céspedes Xeria (1628)

RESUMO Este trabalho tem como objetivo aprofundar o estudo do mapa da viagem de D. Luis de Céspedes Xeria da vila de São Paulo de Piratininga a Ciudad Real de Guayrá, na Província do Paraguai, em 1628. Para tanto, recorremos a fontes primárias como os manuscritos da Coleção De Angelis, mantidos na Biblioteca Nacional no Rio de Janeiro, bem como aos manuscritos do Archivo General de Indias, em Sevilha, incluindo a ampla documentação escrita e sobretudo as duas versões disponíveis do documento cartográfico produzido por Céspedes Xeria em 1628. Em seguida comparamos a cópia encomendada por Affonso d’Escragnolle Taunay em 1917 com ambos originais seiscentistas remanescentes, aferindo-se a fidelidade dessa cópia com um dos originais. Analisamos ainda as representações cartográficas dos povoamentos representados no mapa, que em 1938 suscitaram discussões públicas entre Taunay e Benedito Carneiro Bastos Barreto, o Belmonte, concluindo que todos são símbolos cartográficos ou ícones padronizados em vez de representações baseadas na aparência dos edifícios tal como eram quando foram visitados por Céspedes Xeria na primeira metade do século XVII. Durante este processo distinguimos dois momentos do historiador Taunay: o primeiro revela sua preocupação com a fidelidade ao copiar documentos, e o segundo, a plasticidade de interpretação na análise e utilização desses documentos.

Una versión más de la Conquista de México: análisis etnohistórico y antropológico de la "Información de don Juan de Guzmán Itztlolinqui"

This essay focuses on ethnohistorical and anthropological analysis of the Informacion de don Juan de Guzman Itztlolinqui , a set of related documents from the Archivo General de Indias. This record was composed in Mexico in June 8-15, 1536, as probanza de meritos (proof of merits) of don Juan de Guzman Itztlolinqui, the colonial cacique of Coyoacan in the Basin of Mexico, his elder brother and predecessor don Hernando, and their father, Cuauhpopoca, the pre-Hispanic ruler of the town. Although made in full accordance with Castilian legal procedure of that time, the Informacion de don Juan de Guzman Itztlolinqui is completely based on the earliest indigenous testimonies about the first stage of Conquest ever known.

Servir al rey sin desconsuelo. La cuestión del matrimonio de los miembros de la Audiencia de Manila en el siglo XVIII

Este trabajo está dedicado al estudio de la problemática del matrimonio de los miembros de la audiencia de Manila en el siglo XVIII, a partir del caso del oidor don José Gonzalo de Leaegui, abordándola desde una doble perspectiva: la de los funcionarios filipinos y la del rey y su Consejo de Indias (quienes no mantuvieron siempre una postura concordante). El conflicto entre planteamientos jurídicos diversos se resolverá con la adopción de una política pragmática y casuística, profundamente contradictoria. Esta investigación se ha realizado a partir del análisis de una gran cantidad de fuentes inéditas procedentes del Archivo General de Indias (Sevilla).

Nobles de papel. Identidades oscilantes y genealogías borrosas en los descendientes de la realeza inca by Rocío Quispe-Agnoli

Reviewed by: Nobles de papel. Identidades oscilantes y genealogías borrosas en los descendientes de la realeza inca by Rocío Quispe-Agnoli Alcira Dueñas Quispe-Agnoli, Rocío. Nobles de papel. Identidades oscilantes y genealogías borrosas en los descendientes de la realeza inca. Madrid, Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana–Vervuert, 2016. 264 pp. With a title allusive to the variety of legal papers and visual iconography that sanctioned nobility in the Spanish realms, Nobles de papel immerses the reader into the depths of language in archival documents. Based on a colonial case file extant in the Archivo General de Indias (AGI), Rocío Quispe-Agnoli sets out in search for the discursive underpinnings of ethnic identity construction both textually and in visual royal heraldry. The legal case in point confronted the self-proclaimed Inca noble woman Doña Maria Joaquina Uchu Túpac Yupanqui with the royal authorities of Mexico and Spain. The hope for recognition of her nobility and the attainment of the concomitant material and symbolic benefits brought Doña Joaquina to engage in a long legal battle, which eventually dragged between transatlantic courts from 1788-1801. In practice, however, the petition for nobility engaged a genealogical history and a tradition of petitioning for probanzas de nobleza (proof of noble merits) that lasted for about two hundred and fifty years. The author dives into this 804-folio manuscript, catalogued in the AGI as "Mexico 2346" and referred to as Expediente in the book, in search for the rhetorical elements central to the "self definition" of the Uchu Túpac Yupanqui in "social, [End Page 723] material, historical and genealogical terms" (23). Quispe-Agnoli disclaims that hers is not a historical study but a discursive and interdisciplinary one (41–42), with a focus on identity construction and gender. The book elaborates on the contending forces against and in favor of the plaintiff's interest and synthesizes the identity markers in the legal texts in four interwoven categories: place of origin, family, socioeconomic status, and genealogy and caste. These categories constitute the organizing themes for the book chapters as well. The author suggests that the use of place identifiers (Cuzco, Lambayeque, and Spain) and identifiers of family, caste, and socioeconomic status ("doña," "vecina," "natural," and descendant of the Lambayeque mitimaes) was not always consistent in the Expediente. This was particularly the case when referring to different members of the Uchu Túpac Yupanqui lineage, which perhaps indicated internal differences in social positionality. Such constructions of nobility featured oscillations between the public legal and private discourses and between the above mentioned identifiers, as, for example, Doña Joaquina recurrently represented herself as a noble but poor and suffering woman, rhetorically seeking a favorable legal outcome. Petitioning for privileges, even for ones that are not commonly regarded as ambitious—such as employment for her husband, a scholarship for her son, etc.—would redress her socially and economically, giving some materiality to her nobility. Doña Joaquina chose specific identifiers such as being an Inca noble, a lady, and a person of calidad (social worthiness). She also presented herself as Christian (thus possessing pureza de sangre), claimed to possess nobleza de sangre (Inca lineage), and claimed that her family had enjoyed limpieza de oficio (appointments in high offices). The crown, however, denied her pureza de sangre as an Inca noble, and questioned her calidad, associating her with indios del común (commoners) and perhaps even with plebeians. Although occasionally such elements opposed to each other, they were flexible. Quispe-Agnoli qualifies the Inca lineage in question as "nobles de papel," subordinated subjects that engaged in a "guerra de decires" (a war of speeches) to resist and negotiate with the royal mediators "from outside the place of dominance." The Uchu Túpac Yupanqui accomplished this by redeploying the written legal devices and visual heraldry of the Spanish imperial culture that constituted pureza de sangre. That is, the royal decrees granting nobility status to other colonial Incas (reales cédulas de 1544, 1545, 1546, and 1617); the representations or memoriales they wrote petitioning for noble distinctions and benefits; and the painted iconography of coats of arms that the king previously granted to...

La crónica de Juan de Paiva sobre el juego de pelota en Apalache

El presente artículo busca dar a conocer un texto escrito en 1676 por el padre Juan de Paiva sobre los orígenes mitológicos del juego de pelota de los indios de Apalache y las ceremonias asociadas al mismo El manuscrito, conservado en el Archivo General de Indias, está inédito, y tiene la particularidad de ser una de las dos únicas fuentes documentales que arrojan datos sobre la lengua y cultura de los indios de Apalache en el sistema de misiones españolas de La Florida Un correcto establecimiento del texto nos permitirá, además, adentrarnos en el significado ritual de las ceremonias y orígenes del juego de pelota.

Violencias imperiales. Masacres de indios en las pampas del Río de la Plata (siglos XVI-XVIII)

En las pampas del Río de la Plata se registran recurrentes masacres de indígenas iniciadas poco tiempo después de la refundación de Buenos Aires en 1580. En un contexto de múltiples y complejas interacciones, las relaciones entre las naciones indias regionales soberanas y políticamente descentralizadas y las administraciones coloniales oscilaron entre las vías violentas y diplomáticas. Las incursiones nativas produjeron reacciones represivas a cargo de oficiales y milicianos que mantenían intereses en los negocios pecuarios y rurales afectados por los saqueos, y viceversa. Se reiteraron, entonces, periódicas matanzas de naturales de todo sexo y edad, combatientes y no combatientes, y con frecuencia ajenos a los eventos que las motivaban, así como el subsiguiente reparto de las familias sobrevivientes. Las características de estas agresiones, sus modalidades y sus consecuencias sobre agredidos y agresores constituyen el objeto de este artículo, basado principalmente en documentación de los Archivos de Indias y General de la Nación Argentina.

El acueducto de Guadalajara y la obra de fray Pedro Antonio de Buzeta en España y Nueva España

El acueducto de Guadalajara, construido por fray Pedro Antonio de Buzeta entre 1731 y 1741, fue una de las principales obras virreinales de la capital tapatía. Sus antecedentes se remontan al siglo XVI y sus consecuencias se prolongaron hasta el siglo XIX. A partir de documentación inédita del Archivo General de Indias, hacemos un análisis de esta empresa constructiva y de la actividad de su autor, tanto en España como en América.

Minister and Viceroy, Paisano and Amigo: The Private Correspondence of the Marqués de la Ensenada and the Conde de Superunda, 1745–1749

In the Archivo General de Indias in Seville there exists a remarkable sample of private correspondence between two of the most powerful figures of the Bourbon Age in Spanish American history. The principal writer is Zenón de Somodevilla y Bengoechea, marqués de la Ensenada and minister of Hacienda, War, and Indies and Marine since 1743, and subsequently holder of other posts that made him, in a contemporary opinion, “Secretary of Everything.” His correspondent is José Antonio Manso de Velasco, conde de Superunda and viceroy of Peru from 1745 to 1761, the longest serving and among the most influential of the Peruvian viceroys. The Seville correspondence consists mainly of just seven generally brief letters. The private character of these letters, however, along with the close relationship between the two men and the roles they occupied, makes them historically fascinating. Excerpts are published here for the first time, in both Spanish and English translation.

A Contrastive Study of 18th-Century Word-Lists

Summary At the end of the 18th century Russian Empress Catherine II sent a letter to Spanish King Charles III containing two lists. The first was a list of grammars and vocabularies of American and Asian languages, while the second was a lexical compilation to be translated into as many American and Philippine languages as possible by missionaries and Spanish civil servants. The so-called List no. 2, a matrix list of around 445 words, was translated into approximately fifty languages. These translations were sent to Spain but they never left the country. Although the matrix list in Spanish has already been published, a comparative study focusing on its different translations is still to be made. The compilation and translation of these lists – Pallas’ and List no. 2 – constitute one of the first large-scale projects in comparative linguistics. They were pioneers in their selection criteria, structure and methodology. This paper is a general overview of both the original matrix list (in Spanish) and the manuscripts containing the translations in more than fifty languages, which are to the present day preserved without being studied in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville and the Real Biblioteca in Madrid. In this paper, special attention will be paid to the compilation and translation strategies followed by the missionaries.

Baja California in 1739: An Early Exploration by Ferdinand Konščak

Ferdinand Konsˇčak (Fernando Consag) was a renowned Jesuit missionary and explorer of Baja California. His 1746 map of the California peninsula represented a milestone in the history of the mapping of Baja California. Owing to Konsˇčak’s diaries, his activity in Baja California, from the period of his three famous expeditions (1746–54) to his death in 1759, is relatively well known. In contrast, the period 1732–46, after his arrival in Baja California, had remained practically unknown. This article, based on original research of the author at the Biblioteca Nacional de España (Madrid), Archivo General de Indias (Seville), Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico City), and Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (Rome), for the first time presents Konsˇčak’s early exploration and mapping work in the southern portion of the peninsula. His participation in the preparation of a hitherto unknown map compiled in the manner of the best military maps of the period in order to re-establish authority and control in El Sur after the Indian rebellion of 1734 has changed everything we have known about this cartographer. Collaboration with Spanish naval captain Rafael Villar del Val, which resulted in the map of Bahía de la Paz (1739), was a turning point for Konsˇčak’s future cartographic endeavors. The production of this first detailed hydrographic map represents a unique example of the association of military and Jesuit authorities during a period in which both parties conflicted over the southern part of Baja California.

El tesoro perdido de "Moctezuma"

El presente artículo recorre la trayectoria sobre el paradero de uno de los más renombrados tesoros de la historia de la Conquista de América, aquel que las fuentes llamaban de Moctezuma, soberano del Imperio azteca. Tesoro que hallaron Cortés y sus conquistadores, perdido durante la “Noche Triste” y buscado durante el siglo XVI por el hijo de Hernán Cortés, y en el siglo XVII por la muestra de un códice o pintura de un indígena, que señalaba el lugar donde se escondió en tiempos de la conquista. La parte sobre su búsqueda se basa en documentos tanto del Archivo General de Indias como del Archivo Histórico Nacional.

Philippine typhoons, sources and the historian

The pre-requisite for investigating the impacts of cyclonic storms and climatic change in Philippine history is adequate meteorological records and information on how weather and climate fluctuate and change in the Philippines across time. Reconstructing the history of the typhoon’s impacts, climate variability and human-environment interactions on Philippine society and culture is difficult. The meteorological records to attempt such a reconstruction for the pre-instrument era are fragmentary. For the period prior to 1880, we have to rely on ‘proxy records’ to reconstruct the record of the weather and cyclonic storms over long periods, for example the records produced by provincial parish priests from as early as the seventeenth century, and the early histories and travel accounts of the Spanish friars. In order to trace climatic patterns and the impacts of typhoons, floods and storm surges in the era of pre-instrument observation, the historian must start with the Spanish records held in various civil and ecclesiastical archives and repositories in Spain and the Philippines. In the records of the Archivo General de Indias, Archivo Historico Nacional, Museo Naval, and the archives of the various religious orders—especially the Jesuits, given their unique role in pioneering the science of meteorology in the Philippines—can be found information in documents, letters and books about typhoons, and the colonization process . The catalogues, records and books held in the Philippine National Archive also contain invaluable information to help explain the long-term impacts of cyclonic storms and the ecological disadvantages confronting various typhoon-prone areas in the archipelago up until the end of the nineteenth century. Most importantly for the study of typhoons and human-environment interaction in the Philippines under American rule, the Bureau of Insular Affairs was the knowledge bank, regarding physical, cultural and geographical information about the archipelago. Under the auspices of the government, its staff archived, compiled and printed official data to supply the growing public demand for knowledge about the islands. As part of its range of activities the BIA undertook studies of important issues about the Philippines on behalf of the business sector and distributed thousands of printed documents relating to trade, agriculture, and, most importantly, aspects of the work of the Weather Bureau. There also exists an important oral and visual record of Philippine typhoons and detailed accounts of their impacts in nineteenth and twentieth century newspapers.

Eviction and the archive: materials for an archaeology of the Archivo General de Indias

This essay outlines an experimental microhistory of the founding of the Archivo General de Indias (AGI) in Seville, Spain, one that attends to the localized exclusions that characterize this Enlightenment project. If the “archival turn” has highlighted in ethnographic terms the ways in which silences are inscribed in archival practices and protocols, I propose an archaeological approach that looks to the archive's material and architectonic foundations. The critical turn in eighteenth-century historiography was linked to the emergence of the modern, historical archive, and it is at the intersection of these methodological disputes and the geopolitics of imperial competition that the AGI was established. New scholarship by critical historians in northern Europe provoked calls for an official response in Spain, and this task fell to Juan Bautista Muñoz. His historiographical defense of Spanish colonialism would lead to not only the publication of his Historia del Nuevo-Mundo but also the founding of the AGI as the infrastructure of modern historiography. I read Muñoz's work as an epistemic intervention in ongoing debates over the writing of history that necessarily turns on an architectural intervention in the built environment – not a “domiciliation” but the eviction and subsequent erasure of the inhabitants of the building chosen to house the archive. By foregrounding this eviction and the renovations that followed, I underscore the violence that founds the modern archive, bring into relief the colonial materials from which it is assembled and trace a shift from the nomological to the historiographical as the ground of imperial sovereignty.

El sello real como conflicto: apropiación y mal uso de la imagen del monarca en la Audiencia y Chancillería de Santa Fe (The Royal Seal as a Conflict: Misappropriation and Bad Use of the Monarch´s Image at the Audience and Chancellery of Santa Fe)

The important role that the royal seal had, as much as a representative of the monarch´s leading figure as for its validation and guarantee use, is perfectly reflected on those moments of the history when uprisings or riots against the Crown took place by the Spanish population of the New World. By means of the analysis of diverse events that took place during the XVI Century at the Audience of the New Kingdom of Granada I want to demonstrate the importance of the royal seal on those territories. The documents preserved in the Archivo General de Indias, completed with chronicles of the time and a rich bibliography have helped me to understand and transmit the feelings that rose at this time around the figure of the royal seal.

Veracruz 1519: Los hombres de Cortés

In the spring of 1519, Hernán Cortés and his expedition landed on the coast of what would become Mexico. Shortly thereafter, they began to distance themselves from Diego Velázquez, governor of Cuba, and set the expedition inexorably toward Tenochtitlan and the conquest of the Mexica. The critical document explaining those events, the petition of the town of Veracruz, was lost from the historical record. Now, after nearly 500 years, two books have published and analyzed this petition, appearing within months of one another. The present volume is one of those; I wrote the other with the assistance of Helen Nader, published by the University of Texas Press. One of the more remarkable features of the petition is that it was signed by the members of the Cortés expedition. Although most sources indicate that around 500 men accompanied Cortés, only some 340 signatures (318 full signatures and over 20 fragments) appear on the document, due to a large tear on the bottom of many of the pages.María del Carmen Martínez Martínez has done a solid job in her study of the document. For her analysis, she draws heavily on the literature in Spanish relevant to the Age of Discovery and to the conquest in particular. Most importantly, she looks at all the various references in roughly contemporary documents to the petition of the town, such as ones by Bernal Díaz del Castillo and many others. Other documents of the expedition, such as the power of attorney for the agents in court, also refer to the petition. Thus she uses these references to provide a deep context for the document. Nonetheless, she does not discuss the historiography of the document at any great length and how later historians looked on the events that surrounded it in their treatments of the conquest narrative. The analysis of the document itself focuses to a certain degree on its physical reality: the torn edges, the placement of the signatures on the pages, the structure of the petition. The book does include a transcription of the document in Spanish and a photographic reproduction of the original as appendixes. This makes for a bit of awkwardness, forcing the reader to flip back and forth from time to time.In one of the most interesting sections of the book, Martínez Martínez pieces together a rough chronology of events surrounding the landing at Veracruz, the founding of the town of Veracruz, the writing of the petition, and the eventual march inland to Tenochtitlan. By throwing off ties to Velázquez, Cortés and his men performed an act of treason. The petition of the town sought to ameliorate that act by providing a legal justification for their later actions. Scholars have also been confused about the movement of the expedition in this period because Cortés and his men actually founded two towns, both called Veracruz: one near present-day Veracruz and the island of Ulúa, the other a bit further north by the altepetl known as Quiahuiztlan. Martínez Martínez does a fine job of dealing with all these nuances and tracing the actions and activities of the expedition.Unquestionably the most interesting part of the document is the signatures. Martínez Martínez both analyzes the structure of the signatures and provides thumbnail biographies of the men. She notes, quite rightly, that in many instances one person signed for several of the men. She also details the rubrics, those squiggles that precede and follow the actual name. Unlike most other scholars who study the expeditions, she does not spend much time looking at the social structure of the company, the occupations of the members, or the changes in the composition of the expedition after Veracruz. She has opted to organize the thumbnail biographies alphabetically rather than in the order in which the individuals appeared on the petition, although she does cross-reference the location of each signature. The biographies occupy about a third of the book. In writing them, she has drawn from the standard biographical collections, such as Bernard Grunberg's Dictionnaire des conquistadores de Mexico (2001), as well as on various documents from the Archivo General de Indias and references in the writings of Bernal Díaz del Castillo and others. The signatures are devilishly difficult to decipher. It seems that she has interpreted some of them differently than I have. For example, we agree that Pedro de Ircio signed the document. I believe that his brother, Martín, was also a signer on folio 4 recto, a person she identifies as a Martín de Odiaga.This is a well-researched and well-crafted book that offers a tremendous amount of information for those willing to invest the time and effort in its study. It is tightly focused on the men and events of Veracruz, without significant content on how this expedition compares to those of Peru, New Granada, or Chile.