Rereading the Conquest

The Cazonci, the indigenous ruler of Michoacán, was executed by the Spanish, and the trial record that tells his story was produced by the men who killed him. James Krippner-Martínez starts from documents like this one, written between 1521 and 1565, and reads them as both social historian and literary critic, attending to what they leave out as closely as to what they say. Alongside the trial he examines the Relación de Michoacán and the writings of the first bishop, Vasco de Quiroga, with their uneasy mix of authoritarian paternalism and reformist hope.

The second half follows how these figures were remembered, notably in Pablo de Beaumont's late eighteenth-century Franciscan chronicle, and ends with the quarrel over colonial legacy sparked by the Latin American Bishops Conference of 1992. It is a searching, theory-minded study for readers who want to see how the story of conquest was built, and questioned.