Laura E Matthew Memories of Conquest Becoming Mexicano in Colonial Guatemala Review

[This interview was conducted past our publishing partners at First Peoples, New Directions in Indigenous Studies. The commodity is crossposted from their site, FirstPeoplesNewDirections.org.–ellen]

In her new book, Memories of Conquest: Condign Mexicano in Colonial Guatemala , Laura Eastward. Matthew sheds light on colonial alliances between Indigenous and Spanish conquistadors that helped the Spanish gain a foothold in the Americas. Locating her enquiry in Ciudad Vieja, Guatemala, she places the Nahua, Zapotec, and Mixtec conquistadors of Guatemala and their descendants within a deeply Mesoamerican historical context. She also sheds lite on the ongoing legacies of this history, including the complexities surrounding race and identity in gimmicky Guatemala. Hither she discusses her research as well as new visual evidence of Indigenous conquistadors—the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan—and the historical importance of this discovery.

What are some of the kinds of evidence you found of Indigenous conquistadors and what did that bear witness tell yous about their motivations?

I didn't originally intend to write about Mexicano "yndios conquistadores." I concluded up doing so because they left the biggest paper trail. The condition of the Mexicanos—every bit the Nahua and Oaxacan conquistadors and their descendants came to be known in colonial Guatemala—was college than that of the local Maya, and the Mexicanos also had a pretty exalted sense of themselves, then they asserted themselves more forcefully within the colonial bureaucracy.

Some of the records the Mexicanos left backside are unique—for instance, while virtually Maya were counseled by colonial advisors to write humble messages of petition to Spanish authorities, the Mexicanos adopted the Spanish probanza de méritos y servicios, which was the standard form that all conquistadors used to request recompense for their services. The Mexicanos considered themselves conquistadors, and expected to be treated every bit such.

Most of my documents, though, were typical of whatever written report of community germination under colonial rule. The Catholic church oversaw Ethnic populations and produced of import data peculiarly on population and language use. Court records are great for the small details of everyday life embedded within all the legalese. Notarial records helped me track the Mexicanos' bilingualism in their native Nahuatl and in Spanish.

These are all very traditional materials for a historian, merely they boss only the second one-half of the book. The showtime one-half relies much more on the piece of work of archaeologists, linguists, epigraphers, and art historians. These disciplines have pieced together Mesoamerican history earlier the product of European-mode written records. It was very of import to me that my history of the Mexicanos non begin with the arrival of Europeans past default, simply because that is when the type of documentation with which historians are most comfortable also arrived.

In what ways does your research heighten contemporary understandings of Indigenous agency during the colonial menses? Tin that agency be seen in a positive light even though it entailed the killing, displacement, and slavery of other Indigenous peoples?

Certainly, the Mexicano "yndios conquistadores" displayed a lot of agency! This has always been a trouble for European narratives of the conquest, which may empathize with Indigenous people every bit victims or may care for Native allies as dupes but have a harder time understanding the ways they saw themselves, in this case as conquistadors.

Nahuas, Otomi, Zapotecs, K'iche', and other Mesoamericans were fundamentally involved in planning conquest expeditions, raising troops and supplies, instigating alliances, and colonizing outlying regions aslope the Spanish. In many cases, they did this non considering the Spanish forced them to, but because they were pursuing their own goals in ways that made sense to them, based on their previous experiences of warfare and imperialism.

Researching this book transformed my own sense of Mesoamerican history. As I got deeper into the project, it became impossible to ignore the fundamental imprint of Mesoamerican history, culture, and relationships on the conquest period and beyond. So I had to piece of work much harder than I predictable to weave that preconquest history into my narrative, not but as background only as something integral to my analysis.

Sixteenth-century conquest wasn't a fundamental suspension with the past—it was an important moment along a very long, deep historical timeline. That to me is an incredibly empowering idea and one that applies equally well to people who might more properly exist labeled victims of this detail historical moment.

Why was the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan such an of import discovery and how does it illustrate the arguments you make in the book?

Florine Asselberg's identification of the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan while I was researching this book was serendipitous. I received an email one twenty-four hour period from my friend and mentor Christopher Lutz. Had I heard, he asked, that a Dutch ethnohistorian had institute a painted delineation of the conquest of Guatemala by the Indian conquistadors themselves, at a museum in Puebla, Mexico? My start thought showed no appreciation for the magnitude of the discovery. I was simply thrilled that in that location may accept been contact betwixt the Guatemalan Mexicanos and their homelands, something I had wondered about simply for which I had no evidence.

Detail of the hawkeye warrior from the digital reproduction of the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan

Every bit it turned out, the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan was far more than useful than that. On a painted cloth that covers an unabridged wall, it shows the Mexicanos' view of themselves equally conquistadors meliorate than my linear prose ever could. In it nosotros meet the alliance with Hernán Cortés, the joint campaign with Jorge de Alvarado into Republic of guatemala, various battles throughout the central and western highlands, and the foundation of Ciudad Vieja, all from the perspective of the Quauhquecholteca from fundamental United mexican states who afterward settled their own barrio in Ciudad Vieja. The Spaniards and Quauhquecholteca are portrayed every bit equals against the Maya. Indeed, the Spaniards are modest if of import characters, while the Quauhquecholteca are clearly the main protagonists.

Collaborating with Florine was a real privilege, and the digital reproduction of the Lienzo by the Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala Metropolis brings the details to life in Memories of Conquest. My encompass art—of a Mexicano reenacting the conquest in fancy costume circa 1835—visually brings home how important the Lienzo is for helping the states empathise the Mexicanos' preservation of their heritage in Republic of guatemala. Information technology is a very Europeanized costume. Merely the tall feathered backrack direct echoes warrior costumes we see in the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan from three hundred years earlier.

In the volume, you address the colonial measures used to assign identity and distinguish between Ladinos and Indians. How does that colonial framework proceed to influence understandings of identity in contemporary Guatemala?

The term "ladino" has an interesting history in Guatemala. Information technology initially meant a hispanized "Indian," simply over the colonial period became racialized to indicate someone of mixed Indigenous, African, and/or European heritage. In the nineteenth century, "ladino" lost some, though not all, of its racial associations, and came to mean anyone who was non Indigenous. Today, Guatemala's population is dissever between these two, somewhat ill-defined groups.

The colonial-era Mexicanos actively associated with the Hispanic earth. They earned a reputation equally "yndios ladinos" early by speaking Spanish, celebrating their identity as conquistadors, and generally cooperating with colonialism. But they always insisted on their Indian identity besides. In part, this was considering they received privileges based on their identity as Indian conquistadors. They as well enjoyed self-government as Indians, and so there were incentives non to carelessness that identity.

In the nineteenth century, though, all those incentives disappeared. Ladinos were favored by national policy, and tended to be affiliated with state projects. In some ways, this paralleled the Mexicanos' role under Spanish colonial rule. Then the Mexicanos may have not seen whatever reason to keep as Indians and a Ladino identity may have naturally fit them better.

Today the Mexicanos of Ciudad Vieja consider themselves Ladinos, but some outsiders still run into them every bit Indians. I notice this intriguing, and wonder if it doesn't speak to persistent ideas about rural versus urban development and the foundational organization of the "Indian town," both derived from the colonial experience.

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Laura E. Matthew is assistant professor of history at Marquette University. Her volume, Memories of Conquest: Becoming Mexicano in Colonial Guatemala, is at present available in hardcover and ebook from the University of North Carolina Press.

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Source: https://uncpressblog.com/2012/05/09/interview-laura-e-matthew-on-indigenous-conquistadors-and-complex-identities-in-guatemala/

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