I admire Ethnohistory’s many outstanding articles on Indigenous peoples of North America. But the articles that have influenced me most, perhaps naturally, tend to concern my own field of specialization, Mesoamerica. Nevertheless, I am reminded with each meeting and journal issue that one of the American Society for Ethnohistory’s most valuable contributions to the field is that it brings together people who do research in North, Central, and South America, and many other parts of the world.
The society’s interest in Indigenous peoples and cultures outside of North America developed gradually, however. A review of the journal’s history reveals that it was not until the late 1960s that articles on “Latin” America began to appear in print. The first was a study of Aymara kingdoms in the sixteenth century by John Murra (1968), followed by William Griffen’s (1970) study of nativistic movements in Nuevo Mexico...
